Toll Charges Research Articles

Editorial: Optimisation methods of road pricing

Toll charges are classified into congestion tolls (congestion pricing) and road tolls (private pricing) respectively, according to the purpose of pricing. Congestion pricing is used to mitigate network congestion by shifting traffic flow from peak periods to off-peak periods, from congested routes to less congested routes, or from private cars to public transport. Private toll pricing is used to recoup construction or maintenance costs of road links, when they are built fully or partially on private investment. This special issue reports some recent developments in road pricing. Three papers investigate congestion pricing, and one paper deals with toll adjustment for road franchising. The optimisation models and theoretical findings might be useful and meaningful for future research on road pricing.

Surrogate‐Based Optimization of Expensive‐to‐Evaluate Objective for Optimal Highway Toll Charges in Transportation Network

AbstractThis article adopts a family of surrogate‐based optimization approaches to approximate the response surface for the transportation simulation input–output mapping and search for the optimal toll charges in a transportation network. The computational effort can thus be significantly reduced for the expensive‐to‐evaluate optimization problem. Meanwhile, the random noise that always occurs through simulations can be addressed by this family of approaches. Both one‐stage and two‐stage surrogate models are tested and compared. A suboptimal exploration strategy and a global exploration strategy are incorporated and validated. A simulation‐based dynamic traffic assignment model DynusT (Dynamic Urban Systems in Transportation) is utilized to evaluate the system performance in response to different link‐additive toll schemes implemented on a highway in a real road transportation network. With the objective of minimizing the network‐wide average travel time, the simulation results show that implementing the optimal toll predicted by the surrogate model can benefit society in multiple ways. The travelers gain from the 2.5% reduction (0.45 minutes) of the average travel time. The total reduction in the time cost during the extended peak hours would be around US$65,000 for all the 570,000 network users assuming a US$15 per hour value of time. Meanwhile, the government benefits from the 20% increase of toll revenue compared to the current situation. Thus, applying the optimized pricing scheme in real world can be an encouraging policy option to enhance the performance of the transportation system in the study region.

Variational inequality model for cordon-based congestion pricing under side constrained stochastic user equilibrium conditions

A major objective of the practical implemented cordon-based congestion pricing schemes is to maintain the traffic conditions within the cordon area, which is rarely considered in most of the existing studies. Thus, this paper addresses the optimal toll charge pattern that can restrict the total inbound flow of each cordon to a predetermined threshold. The toll charges on all the entry links of one cordon are required to be identical, for the ease of implementation and users’ recognition. The users’ route choice behaviour is assumed to follow stochastic user equilibrium (SUE) with asymmetric link travel time functions. It is shown that such an optimal toll charge pattern can be attained by solving a SUE problem with side constraints. A variational inequality (VI) model is first proposed for the optimal toll pattern, where the monotone property of this model is rigorously proved. Then, a convergent self-adaptive prediction and correction method can be adopted for solving the VI model. It is shown that when used in practice, the solution method only needs traffic counts on entry links of each cordon.

Sequential experimental approach for congestion pricing with multiple vehicle types and multiple time periods

This paper develops a sequential experimental approach for the optimal congestion pricing problem on a general transportation network with multiple vehicle types and multiple time periods. The approach explicitly considers the interaction among different types of vehicular flow and the interdependence of demand among various origin–destination (O–D) pairs and in different time periods. Toll charge on each link in each period is differentiated across vehicle types on the basis of their observable differences to reflect their different congestion externalities. The evolutionary pricing scheme updates link tolls from only observed link flows without requiring explicit forms of demand functions. Given a trial of toll pattern, the revealed link flows can be observed easily; then a new set of tolls can be determined based on the observed flow volume and sequentially used for next trial. The detailed implementation procedure is examined with both theoretical analyses and numerical experiments.

Private Rights and Public Purposes in the Lakes, Rivers and Streams of Ontario, 1870-1930

Water management in Ontario from 1870 to 1930 was significantly influenced by government regulation of the forest industry and hydro-electric power production. Government intervention gradually reduced the court's role in adjudicating competing rights to Ontario's waterways. This essay illustrates the general evolution in institutional responsibility and design in these two industries, and suggests possible explanations. The author examines the role of the judiciary and the legislature in the lumber trade, particularly in relation to water power privileges, stream improvements, toll charges, timber drives, and certain problems of liability arising where lumbermen clashed with other social interests. The author examines the hydro power industry's impact on water law, namely regarding water powers and provincial purposes, the ownership of the beds of navigable waters, the regulation of water power monopolies, including the regulation of production levels and pricing, the consequences of environmental awareness, and the complex challenges of managing multi-use international water basins. The author explains the process of institutional diversification as a product of differing perspectives of the courts and legislature. The judiciary preferred to resolve conflicts by protecting the established property interests of private litigants. The court was hesitant and ill-equipped to account for conflicts that involved public interests and rights, balancing needs, and apportioning rights to water. By contrast, the legislature was more interested in encouraging maximal resource use, economic development and progress. The movement towards the regulation of water use originated in an paralleled nineteenth-century changes in attitudes regarding the public interest and economic progress.

Bus-based park-and-ride system: a stochastic model on multimodal network with congestion pricing schemes

This paper focuses on modelling the network flow equilibrium problem on a multimodal transport network with bus-based park-and-ride (P&R) system and congestion pricing charges. The multimodal network has three travel modes: auto mode, transit mode and P&R mode. A continuously distributed value-of-time is assumed to convert toll charges and transit fares to time unit, and the users’ route choice behaviour is assumed to follow the probit-based stochastic user equilibrium principle with elastic demand. These two assumptions have caused randomness to the users’ generalised travel times on the multimodal network. A comprehensive network framework is first defined for the flow equilibrium problem with consideration of interactions between auto flows and transit (bus) flows. Then, a fixed-point model with unique solution is proposed for the equilibrium flows, which can be solved by a convergent cost averaging method. Finally, the proposed methodology is tested by a network example.

A Invenção dos Caminhos Reais do Ouro: Formação Territorial e as Estratégias de Apropriação Territorial dos Eixos de Circulação no Século XVIII

Este texto tem por objetivo analisar as estratégias empregadas pela elite colonial brasileira no processo de apropriação territorial do Caminho Real do Ouro (Minas Gerais -- Rio de Janeiro), por meio de concessão de sesmarias na primeira metade do século XVIII, cujo objetivo era tirar o máximo proveito da circulação obrigatória de pessoas e mercadorias por meio do abastecimento de alimentos, cobranças de passagens, aluguel de ranchos, etc. nos pousos e fazendas que foram se formando nestas sesmarias. O estudo baseia-se na análise de fontes documentais transcritas em periódicos específicos e obras de referência. Conclui-se que para a compreensão da formação territorial brasileira no século XVIII, não basta analisar isoladamente a mineração aurífera, mas toda a sua cadeia produtiva com destaque para o sistema de circulação que não só uniu o interior ao litoral, como também imprimiu uma territorialidade própria ao longo desses eixos de circulação.

Fundamental properties of volume–capacity ratio of a private toll road in general networks

It has been addressed in the existing literature that the volume–capacity (v/c) ratio on a private toll road is constant, regardless of the toll value and capacity set by the private companies for each toll road in the network. The previous derivation depends on the assumption that the user equilibrium flow on the private toll road is continuously differentiable with respect to its capacity and toll charge. In this paper, it is shown that the constant v/c ratio phenomenon still holds via relaxing this assumption. Such phenomenon is further examined in different scenarios: the v/c ratio remains constant under the demand regulation, markup charge regulation, and social cost minimization scheme; it may change under the rate-of-return regulation; it may decrease under capacity regulation and increase under the price-cap regulation. Moreover, this paper demonstrates that the v/c ratio may change if there are decreasing or increasing returns to scale in road construction, or the road capacity can only take discrete values, or link flow interactions are involved, whereas the v/c ratio remains constant in case of elastic demand.

The impact of speed limits on traffic equilibrium and system performance in networks

Speed limits are usually imposed on roads in an attempt to enhance safety and sometimes serve the purpose of reducing fuel consumption and vehicular emissions as well. Most previous studies up to date focus on investigation of the effects of speed limits from a local perspective, while network-wide traffic reallocation effects are overlooked. This paper makes the first attempt to investigate how a link-specific speed limit law reallocates traffic flow in an equilibrium manner at a macroscopic network level. We find that, although the link travel time–flow relationship is altered after a speed limit is imposed, the standard traffic assignment method still applies. With the commonly adopted assumptions, the uniqueness of link travel times at user equilibrium (UE) remains valid, and the UE flows on links with non-binding speed limits are still unique. The UE flows on other links with binding speed limits may not be unique but can be explicitly characterized by a polyhedron or a linear system of equalities and inequalities. Furthermore, taking into account the traffic reallocation effects of speed limits, we compare the capability of speed limits and road pricing for decentralizing desirable network flow patterns. Although from a different perspective for regulating traffic flows with a different mechanism, a speed limit law may play the same role as a toll charge scheme and perform better than some negative (rebate) toll schemes under certain conditions for network flow management.

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

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.

Radio-Frequency-Identification Technique Opens and Closes Sliding Sleeves Remotely

This article, written by Editorial Manager Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 153834, ’Interventionless Completions for Unconventional Shale Plays,’ by Jane Mason, SPE, John Tough, Paul Day, SPE, and Shirley Hatton, Petrowell, prepared for the 2012 SPE Middle East Unconventional Gas Conference and Exhibition, Abu Dhabi, 23-25 January. The paper has not been peer reviewed. To simplify the process of multiple fracturing operations, a new approach has been designed that uses radio-frequency-identification (RFID) techniques to operate sliding sleeves remotely. The number of sleeves that can be run in a well using this technology is essentially unlimited, each having the same identification and a unique electronic address that allows it to be operated remotely at will. This approach makes considerably more zones available for treatment without coiled-tubing or wireline physical intervention and, thereby, speeds the operations. RFID-Technology Overview RFID technology will be familiar as the basis of toll-road tags for identification of one’s car—the tag in one’s vehicle contains a microchip that positively identifies it and triggers a toll charge. This same microchip system (Fig. 1) can be used to trigger a downhole tool that has an embedded antenna that picks up the coded signal in the chip as it is pumped down the hole. RFID’s method of data transfer and adaptability permit widespread application in a downhole environment. It is a close-proximity means of transferring data; no direct line of sight is required, and it works by using at least two devices—a reader and tag. The devices are paired and able to recognize each other through the transmission of radio waves; a tag is coded with relevant information that can be read as it passes an RFID reader. The term “close proximity” is relative. Tags are read from 100 m in the airline industry, where readers are able to use vast amounts of power. In contrast, the distance would be reduced to 6–12 in. in the oil industry, demanding far less power downhole. The tag, which contains an electronic circuit (transponder), is programmed with specific information, and, when it approaches the reader, the radio-frequency field generated by the reader powers up the tag, causing it to transmit its data continuously by pulsing the radio frequency. The data are then captured by the reader and processed. Because the tag is so small, it allows great freedom of movement, and there is no need for direct contact for both devices, which results in a high level of convenience and flexibility. Some of the other advantages of RFID are Tags can be hidden or embedded in nonmetallic materials. No line of sight is required. Its contactless nature limits wear and tear. Tags can be read even if they are covered with dirt or submerged. Unalterable permanent serial code prevents tampering.

Highway toll pricing

For a tolled highway where consecutive segments allow vehicles to enter and exit unrestrictedly, we propose a simple toll pricing method. It is shown that the method is the unique method satisfying the classical axioms of Additivity and Dummy in the cost sharing literature, and the axioms of Toll Upper Bound for Local Traffic and Routing-proofness. We also show that the toll pricing method is the only method satisfying Routing-proofness Axiom and Cost Recovery Axiom. The main axiom in the characterizations is Routing-proofness which says that no vehicle can reduce its toll charges by exiting and re-entering intermediately. In the special case when there is only one unit of traffic (vehicle) for each (feasible) pair of entrance and exit, we show that our toll pricing method is the Shapley value of an associated game to the problem. In the case when there is one unit of traffic entering at each entrance but they all exit at the last exit, our toll pricing method coincides with the well-known airport landing fee solution-the Sequential Equal Contribution rule of Littlechild and Owen (1973).

Impact analysis of cordon-based congestion pricing on mode-split for a bimodal transportation network

This paper investigates the impact of cordon-based congestion pricing scheme on the mode-split of a bimodal transportation network with auto and rail travel modes. For any given toll-charge pattern, its impact on the mode-split can be estimated by solving a combined mode-split and traffic-assignment problem. Using a binary logit model for the mode-split, the combined problem is converted into a traffic-assignment problem with elastic demand. Probit-based stochastic user equilibrium (SUE) principle is adopted for this traffic-assignment problem, and a continuously distributed value of time (VOT) is assumed to convert the toll charges and transit fares into time-units. This combined mode-split and traffic-assignment problem is then formulated as a fixed-point model, which can be solved by a convergent Cost Averaging method. The combined mode-split and traffic-assignment problem is then used to analyze a multimodal toll design problem for cordon-based congestion pricing scheme, with the aim of increasing the mode-share of public transport system to a targeted level. Taking the fixed-point model as a constraint, the multimodal toll design problem is thus formulated as a mathematical programming with equilibrium constraints (MPEC) model. A genetic algorithm (GA) is employed to solve this MPEC model, which is then numerical validated by a network example.

Estimating Value of Travel Time Savings by Using Large-Scale Household Survey Data from Japan

Expressways provide road users with reduced travel time and safer driving conditions for a toll. The toll charge has been one of the most important issues in expressway planning. The user's willingness to pay for saving travel time by using an expressway service is one of the most important factors in examining toll charges for expressways. A large Japanese database was used to empirically estimate road users' value of travel time savings (VTTS). The results showed that the estimated VTTS of business travel was nearly equal to or a little lower than the average wage rate in Japan, whereas the estimated VTTS of home-to-workplace and private travels was lower than the estimated VTTS of business travel. VTTS increased with the trip length. The estimated VTTS from 07:00 to 09:59 was higher than during other periods. The estimated VTTS of individuals in their 20s and in their 60s was lower than that of individuals in other age groups. The estimated VTTS of men was a little higher than that of women. The estimated VTTS per vehicle when a person was driving alone was higher than the estimated VTTS per vehicle when a driver has passengers. The estimated VTTS of production and transport workers was lower than the estimated VTTS of people in other jobs. A toll charge should reflect the VTTS of road users, so policy implications for the charge were examined.

Modeling of Effects of Peak Load Pricing on Metropolitan Network and Activities

Peak load pricing has long been seen as a way to internalize externalities, as a set of incentives to shift peak hour trips to off-peak periods, and as a mechanism to generate revenues. However, how travelers trade time for money and respond to peak–off-peak pricing differentials is an open question that generates some timely and related questions, including the following: (a) How can the activity location and traffic implications for multiple times of the day in a major metropolitan area be modeled? (b) What are the network effects of peak load pricing on selected routes on level of service and urban development? It is possible to conduct simulations on actual highway networks to treat these questions. None of the urban models, however, can examine simultaneous route choice and time-of-day choice involving millions of travelers, thousands of traffic network zones, and hundreds of thousands of network links in an equilibrium system. This research addressed these questions by extending the Southern California Planning Model so that it could be used to determine the effects of pricing schemes on the time-of-day choice for travel, trip distribution, and network traffic for the greater Los Angeles, California (five-county), metropolitan area. The model estimated improvements in levels of service throughout the highway network for alternative toll charges. The model examined how drivers traded route choice with time-of-day choice against the option of traveling less. The approach also estimated the revenues implied for local jurisdictions as well as the possible effects of altered development pressures on land use throughout the region. The effects of two different toll scenarios were compared, and policy implications were offered.

The Morning Commute Problem with Coarse Toll and Nonidentical Commuters

This paper studies the morning commute problem under a flat peak-period toll (coarse toll) within the context of heterogeneous commuters. All the possible cumulative departure curves resulting from different choices of toll level and charging period are examined. The optimal toll schemes are then derived from minimizing the total travel cost of all commuters, excluding toll cost. We prove that at the optimum there will be no queue or capacity waste at the bottleneck at both the starting and ending points of the charging period for the type of Value-Of-Time (VOT) distribution considered in the paper. Moreover, the optimal coarse toll scheme is pareto-improving. Different from the homogeneous case, which can be regarded as a special case of the heterogeneous case, price discrimination occurs when commuters have different VOT. The optimal solution depends on the units in which the system cost is measured and we find that commuters in the middle pack of the VOT distribution are worse off by higher toll charges if the system cost is measured in money instead of time. A numerical example is provided at the end for demonstration.

Analysis of a Build–Operate–Transfer Scheme for Road Franchising

ABSTRACT Private provision of public roads through build–operate–transfer (BOT) contracts is increasing around the world. Under a BOT contract, a private firm would build a road, charge tolls to road users for a period, and then transfer the road to the government. By viewing a BOT contract as a combination of three variables—concession period, road capacity, and toll charge—we study optimal BOT contracts that maximize social welfare and allow the private sector an acceptable profit. We also study how to reach optimal BOT contracts, either through bilateral negotiations between public and private sectors or through competitive auctions.

Spanish mutual fund fees and less sophisticated investors: examination and ethical implications

Some mutual funds not only apply the usual asset management and custodial fees, but also front loads and redemption fees as a kind of ‘toll charge’ payable on entering and/or leaving the fund. The aim of this work is to examine the implications of the different loads and fees applied to mutual fund investors in the Spanish market. The results show that there is a relationship between the various charges and fees. The fact that load fund companies charge higher management and custody fees proves the potential of the fund companies to impose higher fees on a segment of the clientele. The investors in load funds, which tend to be large in number of shareholders and belonging to banks and savings banks, are small investors who show a low cost sensitivity. A lower level of financial sophistication may be the reason for the apparent lower price awareness. The problem is that the investors in load funds are not financially compensated for the extra cost represented by the front‐load and redemption fees. The only beneficiary seems to be the financial institution itself. On this view, the survival of load funds seems to depend on the lack of financial sophistication of their clientele, combined with market inefficiencies. It is worth asking about the ethics of a situation of market segmentation that allows managing institutions to benefit from the segment of the least sophisticated investors.

Joint pricing and design of urban highways with spatial and user group heterogeneity

This paper addresses the joint optimization of capacity investments and toll charges imposed on multi-group users in monopolistic private highways within general road networks. A game-theoretic formulation is provided that leads to a nonconvex bilevel program. The proposed modeling framework handles several complex issues raised in realistic applications, such as regulations on the levels of tolls and service, and the discrete nature of highway capacity, using a genetic optimization technique. Real-application results show the importance of considering the spatial heterogeneity of prices, and the tradeoff between investments and pricing strategies in regulated private highways.

Impact of Two-Part Pricing Scheme on Social Welfare for Congested Metropolitan Expressway Networks

Road pricing has proved to be an effective means of managing traffic demand, reducing the environmental impact of road traffic, and obtaining revenues. The model employed in this paper is based on the social marginal cost economic theory for assessing the total change in social welfare by means of different indicators. This model has the advantage of comparing different road-pricing systems apart from the traditional ones (simple schemes), such as cordon and kilometric toll. In this case a two-part tariffs scheme has been analyzed. The results show that to optimize the current road capacity, the two-part optimal prices must be determined (optimal combination of access toll and kilometric charge). This will allow a higher increase in social welfare. This increase is obtained by internalizing the congestion social cost (reducing deadweight loss) when diminishing demand to an optimum amount. This model has been applied on the expressway networks of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Spain. Conclusions show that if demand is reduced by 10%, a favorable change in social welfare takes place, which is 96% higher than if demand is reduced by only 5%. However, if demand is reduced by 15%, such change in social welfare increases by only 20% compared with a 10% demand reduction scenario.