Optimal Tolling Strategies and Concession Period Required for Build-Operate-Transfer Road Projects in Network with Demand Uncertainty by Vehicle Types

Abstract

In view of uncertainty of traffic demand by vehicle types during the concession period, the toll charges of these BOT roads should be time-dependent and varied for different vehicle types by time of the concession period so as to maximize the system performance.It can be formulated as a bi-level programming problem. At the upper level, the objective is to maximize the social surplus combining of consumer surplus and the investor’s net profit. With taking account the demand elasticity in respect to the toll variability and incorporating the demand uncertainty into the revenue-cost constraint, the lower level is a multi-class reliability-based stochastic user equilibrium model. A genetic solution algorithm is adopted for solving the bi-level programming problem. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the applications of the proposed model and solution algorithm and some conclusions are drawn.