Flat Toll Research Articles

A competitive system with transit and highway: Revisiting the political feasibility of road pricing

This paper analyzes the political feasibility of road pricing. In a monocentric city, we assume that every morning, there are a fixed number of commuters going to work by car or by bus. A flat toll is levied on commuters who drive to work and the toll revenues are redistributed to all commuters or bus riders only, or not at all. If more than half commuters support or benefit from the pricing scheme, it is considered politically feasible, and vice versa. We show that no one supports implementing road pricing if the toll revenues are not returned, and that the two revenue redistribution measures can produce the identical modal split and departure pattern, but their politically feasible toll intervals are different. Furthermore, if commuters without cars are the majority, they will benefit from the pricing scheme while commuters with cars suffer, regardless of the redistribution measures. However, all commuters may benefit from the pricing scheme when commuters with cars account for an overwhelming majority. This research provides a method for the government to evaluate under what conditions implementing road pricing is politically feasible.

Price-management of traffic congestion: Hong Kong’s Lion Rock Tunnel

Hong Kong drivers face rush-hour traffic congestion at the Lion Rock Tunnel (LRT) which interconnects the Northeast New Territories and the Kowloon Peninsula. The LRT’s flat toll is HK$8 (≈US$1.03), much lower than the Tate’s Cairn Tunnel’s (TCT’s) vehicle-differentiated tolls of HK$13 to HK$34 per vehicular trip. We develop two proposals to raise the LRT’s toll and reduce the TCT’s tolls. Using the monthly data available from the Hong Kong Transport Department for the 15-year period of 2000–2014, we estimate a Generalized Leontief demand system to document statistically significant (p-value<0.05) tunnel usage responses to these toll proposals. As the two tunnels’ elasticity estimates vary by traffic direction, a directional toll proposal may further ease the LRT’s rush-hour congestion. Hence, Hong Kong can price-manage the LRT’s congestion because a decrease in the LRT’s total usage likely reduces the LRT’s peak usage that occurs during the rush hours.

Effects of the change of toll system on social surplus: A case study of distance-based toll in Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway

Abstract We examines the effects of the change of toll system on the economic efficiency, focusing on a case of Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway, i.e., Shutoko, whose toll system had shifted from flat toll to distance-based toll. Drivers using the parallel general road are considered, and they are to pay the fuel tax to the government. We calculated the social surplus comprised of the consumers’ surplus and the producers’ surplus among both the highway company and the government. Furthermore, it is shown that the Ramsey pricing rule could increase the social surplus while toll receipts of the highway company being unchanged.

Flat versus spatially variable tolling: A case study in Fresno, California

A number of studies have examined the feasibility of temporal variations in tolls. However, spatial variation in tolls has not received much attention, especially in practice. Spatial variation could effectively reduce congestion and increase profits. To fill this gap, we conduct an empirical application on 3 different road segments using the Fresno, California's transportation planning model. Our modeling results in a number of interesting insights. First, the derived optimal flat toll values are very close to the average variable tolls, but the effects of applying spatially variable tolls on improving total revenues (from 4% to 24%) and total improved travel time (from 18% to 1083%) measures are significant. Second, spatially variable tolls are more effective, but more costly, particularly for arterials, which can be attributed to the higher number of access points for arterials. Third, spatial variations in tolls are more effective for peak hours than for off-peak hours and for social optimization than for profit maximization. Fourth, to improve throughputs for both profit maximization and social optimization, the prevalent tolling pattern along a corridor induces lower final volumes per capacity (V/Cs) (after pricing) at the mainline flow sections and relatively higher final V/Cs at the entrance and exit (boundary) points. Finally, optimal toll patterns are not dependent on vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) or volumes but, rather, are related to targeted V/Cs. Therefore, flow-dependent charges along a corridor should be based on V/Cs rather than on volumes or VMTs.

Determining the Toll and Capacity of a Highway to Be Constructed in Parallel with Subway

This paper considers the problem of toll and capacity choice of a new highway with a bottleneck added onto an existing transit network under four ownership/tolling regimes: public fine toll, public flat toll, private fine toll, and private flat toll. Whenever fine toll and flat toll are imposed, in a competitive highway/transit network with constant returns to scale in road construction, an optimally designed and priced privately owned highway would produce positive net benefit justly equal to the total markup with respect to all autocommuters, whereas an optimally designed and priced publicly owned highway would lead to a deficit; that is, the toll revenues are insufficient to cover its all costs. The economic conditions to invest a new road are investigated under different ownership/tolling regimes.

The morning commute under flat toll and tactical waiting

This paper studies the morning commute problem under “tactical waiting”, a phenomenon observable under situations when sudden drops in travel costs are present. Under such situations, travelers may find it advantageous to delay reaching the bottleneck by slowing down or waiting beside, even when there is still capacity left to serve them without delay. In this paper, we show that a flat toll during the morning commute potentially incurs tactical waiting under the assumptions of First-In-First-Out (FIFO) queue discipline and identical commuters, and derive all the possible equilibrium traffic patterns resulting from different choices of toll level and tolling period. Under the optimal toll pattern which minimizes the total system cost, we prove that there is no queue at the bottleneck at the starting or ending point of the tolling period and bottleneck capacity is fully utilized except during the period of tactical waiting. The optimal flat toll can reduce up to half of the queuing delay, but is in general not pareto-improving. However, if the revenue collected by the optimal flat toll is redistributed to the road users in the form of capacity expansion, the trip cost of each commuter will be reduced in the long-run. We also show that when building a new highway, the revenue from the optimal flat toll can never cover the capital cost of constructing the optimal capacity.

Impact of Peak and Off-Peak Tolls on Traffic in San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge Corridor in California

The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge is located in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area in California and connects two of the largest cities in northern California over San Francisco Bay. In July 2010, the Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) increased tolls on the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge from a flat toll collected westbound only to weekday peak and off-peak tolls. BATA also instituted a carpool toll of $2.50 (previously carpools crossed for free) payable by FasTrak electronic toll collection tag only. With floating-car data provided by BATA, the change in travel time for the I-80, I-580, and I-880 approaches was computed by payment type (cash, FasTrak, and high-occupancy vehicle access lanes) and hour. Travel times were found to have been reduced by 0 to 16 min for cash customers (varying by time of day and approach), with varying results for FasTrak customers and little change for high-occupancy vehicle customers. Data collected by BATA at the toll plaza were analyzed by hour and payment type. The analysis found that the number of vehicles in the carpool lanes was reduced by more than 20% at times, whereas FasTrak volumes remained steady or increased and cash volumes were slightly lower than before the toll switch.

AN ESTIMATION OF EFFICIENT TIME-VARYING TOLLS FOR CROSS HARBOR TUNNELS IN HONG KONG

This work estimates the distribution of a time-varying toll over a 24-hour period that minimizes the combined queue length of the three tunnels that traverse Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour, taking into account institutional constraints. Our results reveal that switching from a flat toll to a time-varying toll scheme would eliminate all existing tunnel queues. We argue that optimal tunnel tolling, coupled with the nonstop electronic toll collection mechanism already in place, could be the first step toward the implementation of electronic road pricing in Hong Kong. Optimal tolling would obviate the need to build a fourth harbor crossing in the near future.

THE OPTIMAL ROAD PRICING FOR A CORRIDOR WITH A NEW ELEVATED ROAD PROJECT

This paper explores the optimal road pricing policy when a new elevated road is constructed in a corridor that suffers from traffic congestion before the elevated road is built. Due to the extra construction/maintenance expenditure for this new elevated road and the need to lessen congestion situation, the government decides to apply a road-pricing mechanism on the transportation system. Three pricing policies are discussed in this paper: (a) charging the travelers who live after the entrance of the new elevated road by a flat toll; (b) charging the travelers who live after the entrance of the new elevated road but the new elevated road users and original road users would pay different toll; and (c) charging all the travelers with different congestion toll depending on which path they use. The numerical result shows the existence of the social optimal corresponding toll. The best pricing policy among these three alternatives is also discussed.