Optimal Location of Electronic Toll Gantries: The Case of a Portuguese Freeway

Abstract

This paper presents a decision supporting tool for the location of electronic toll gantries in freeways, regarding the maximization of the toll revenue. The adopted case study consists in one of the most important Portuguese freeways, with 180km of extension and a recently introduced electronic toll collection system. In the first stage of the modeling procedure, we applied a categorical binary model to set drivers’ route choice between the tolled freeway segments and the fastest non-tolled alternative paths, based on traffic data collected before and after the introduction of the toll fees. Then, we developed an optimization model to assign a limited or unlimited number of toll gantries to the freeway segments considering the generalized costs of the trips performed using the freeway and the alternative routes. The results showed that charging for all of the freeway segments may not be the best solution to increase road pricing revenue.