Alternative approach for the evaluation of road pricing strategies

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2005.Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-205).Interest in road pricing among political leaders, transportation analysts, academics, and government agencies has increased in recent years. There are myriad reasons for this newfound consideration, but the deployment of intelligent transportation systems, the desire for additional revenue sources, and the search for policies that can reduce congestion are among the most important. This thesis examines the impacts of six different types of road pricing strategies, namely: conventional tolling, facility congestion pricing, express lanes (e.g. HOT lanes), area- wide and cordon pricing, network pricing, and distance-based pricing. It also presents a new sketch-planning model, the Road Pricing Decision Analysis Tool (RPDAT), which highlights each strategy's unique set of strengths and weaknesses for achieving different policy objectives and recommends road pricing strategies for particular metropolitan areas. Despite a growing interest in pricing, many decision makers feel unable to estimate the impacts of pricing strategies accurately with conventional models. This thesis discusses the factors believed to be responsible for drivers' choosing to use priced facilities, explains why conventional models are incapable of capturing many of these factors or the aggregate effects of a pricing policy, and identifies some improvements that could be made to existing transportation models. RPDAT performs a multi-criteria analysis of nine road pricing strategies, one of which is a "no pricing" alternative, for a metropolitan area. The user inputs policy priorities and regional characteristics, and RPDAT's algorithms calculate how well each alternative meets the decision maker's criteria as well as index scores that reflect the overall preference for each alternative. This tool is applied to Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia and is used to recommend road pricing strategies for the KL metropolitan area.by Jeffrey D. Ensor.S.M

A Conceptual Collaborative Engagement Framework for Road Infrastructure Management in Nigeria

This study developed a conceptual collaborative engagement framework to overcome the challenges and contextual constraints associated with road infrastructure management in Nigeria

Travel Time Reliability and Level of Service

Travel time reliability (TTR) is familiar to travelers, and its indices are useful measures of the quality of a freeway’s service. Technical groups such as highway agencies are more familiar with a freeway’s level of service (LOS), but the LOS does not capture the variability in travel time. Similar to Pu (2011) this thesis introduces a modified buffer index (BI) incorporating a median rather than average travel time as a new travel time reliability measure. Current research by the SHRP 2 L08 Project Team defines freeway reliability LOS by determining equivalent travel time index for similar travel speed ranges shown on page 8 in TABLE 2. It is anticipated that the new index will be able to provide an additional model for defining LOS using TTR as a service measure on freeway corridors. Data from the BlueTOAD (Bluetooth Travel-time Origination and Destination) devices, which utilize Bluetooth technology, was used to develop a methodology to determine a LOS of the highway facility with the use of the new TTR index and a section of the I-12 highway was used for this study. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranked test was used to assess whether the difference between the median values of the new and existing BIs at various speed ranges are significant. From the Wilcoxon Signed Ranked test the difference between the new and existing BI was found to be significant for speed ranges sr; sr ≥ 60mph, 50≤sr≤59, 45≤sr≤49, 40≤sr≤44, 35≤sr≤39, but not sr \u3c 35mph. However the BI was inconclusive in providing an accurate measure for defining LOS. This is due to the data showing an increasing linear upward trend from LOS A to LOS C but then starts decreasing linearly downwards from LOS D to LOS F. More analysis is needed at all the speed ranges and should be carried out on several segments along the I-12 corridor instead of one segment in order to obtain comprehensive results. Data, including volume data for an entire year is also needed to comprehensively analyse the LOS

Suitability of distributed mobile wireless networking for urban traffic congestion mitigation

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2001.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 101-103).A suitability study is performed into the use of distributed mobile wireless networking for the purposes of urban traffic congestion mitigation. The technologies of global positioning system (GPS), wireless networking, and mobile ad-hoc networking (MANET) protocols are surveyed for potential usability and applicability in a peer-to-peer highway vehicle network. Analysis of traffic statistics for the Boston, MA metropolitan area reveal the parameters required to build an initial network. The estimated parameters are a two percent level of penetration (50,000 vehicles), two Megabit per second usable data bandwidth, one half mile average transmission range, two hundred dollars cost per device, and fifteen million dollar total system cost for five years of operation. Using a hop-count routing algorithm, the network would support collection of area-wide vehicle positions for automated highway traffic sampling and fleet tracking on congested roadways. Following this first stage system are presented two more application scenarios according to increasing levels of penetration and increased reliability of the network. The medium-term application is the provision of mobile Internet access to allow consumer and business services. The long-term application is the ability to perform automated transactions. Envisioned in this long-term scenario is the ability to do area-wide road pricing to reduce congestion levels and influence land-use decisions. Technology options and design choices for privacy protection are discussed including voluntary participation, incentivized participation, blackout zones, aggregation of data, non-identifiable data, and anonymous routing protocols. Centralized toll tables and transactions are shown to reduce privacy but increase convenience as opposed to distributed toll tables and in-vehicle transactions. Institutional implementation through Federal ITS funding of a State-run public-private partnership is suggested to maximize mutual benefit. Given these options for handling the issues, the staging presented, and the flexibility, coverage, and application benefits of the system, the conclusion is that such a network would be suitable for mitigation of urban traffic congestion.by Shailesh Niranjan Humbad.M.C.P

HOT Lanes with a Refund Option and Potential Application of Connected Vehicles

abstract: Priced Managed Lanes (MLs) have been increasingly advocated as one of the effective ways to mitigating congestion in recent years. This study explores a new and innovative pricing strategy for MLs called Travel Time Refund (TTR). The proposed TTR provides an additional option to paying drivers that insures their travel time by issuing a refund to the toll cost if they do not reach their destination within specified travel times due to accidents or other unforeseen circumstances. Perceived benefits of TTR include raised public acceptance towards priced MLs, utilization increase of HOV/HOT lanes, overall congestion mitigation, and additional funding for relevant transportation agencies. To gauge travelers’ interests of TTR and to analyse its possible impacts, a stated preference (SP) survey was performed. An exploratory and statistical analysis of the survey responses revealed negative interest towards HOT and TTR option in accordance with common wisdom and previous studies. However, it is found that travelers are less negative about TTR than HOT alone; supporting the idea, that TTR could make HOT facilities more appealing. The impact of travel time reliability and latent variables representing psychological constructs on travelers’ choices in response to this new pricing strategy was also analysed. The results indicate that along with travel time and reliability, the decision maker’s attitudes and the level of comprehension of the concept of HOT and TTR play a significant role in their choice making. While the refund option may be theoretically and analytically feasible, the practical implementation issues cannot be ignored. This study also provides a discussion of the potential implementation considerations that include information provision to connected and non-connected vehicles, distinction between toll-only and refund customers, measurement of actual travel time, refund calculation and processing and safety and human factors issues. As the market availability of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) is prognosticated by 2020, the potential impact of such technologies on effective demand management, especially on MLs is worth investigating. Simulation analysis was performed to evaluate the system performance of a hypothetical road network at varying market penetration of CAVs. The results indicate that Connected Vehicles (CVs) could potentially encourage and enhance the use of MLs.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 201

Impacts of User Heterogeneity and Attitudinal Factors on Roadway Pricing Analysis - Investigation of Value of Time and Value of Reliability for Managed Lane Facilities in South Florida

Managed lane refers to the application of various operational and design strategies on highway facilities to improve system efficiency and mobility by proactively allocating traffic capacity to different lanes. One of the key elements to understand the behavior changes and underlying causalities in user responses to managed lanes is to examine the value of time (VOT) and value of reliability (VOR). The breadth of this dissertation encompasses two major dimensions of VOT and VOR estimation – distributions or variations across different users and under different circumstances; and influences of unobserved attitudinal characteristics on roadway pricing valuation. To understand travelers’ choice behavior regarding the usage of managed lanes, combined revealed preference (RP) and stated preference (SP) data were used in this study. Mixed logit modeling was applied as the state of the art methodology to capture heterogeneity in users’ choice behavior. The model revealed an average value of $10.68 per hour for VOT and$13.91 per hour for VOR, which are reasonable considering the average household income in the region, and are well within the ranges found in the literature. In terms of user heterogeneity, the mixed logit model was further enhanced by adding interaction effects of variables, which helped recognize and quantify potential sources of heterogeneity in user sensitivities to time, reliability, and cost. The findings indicated that travelers were likely to exhibit higher willingness to pay when they were female, younger (years), older (\u3e54 years), had higher income (\u3e 50 K), driving alone, and traveled on weekdays. Attitudinal aspects are rarely incorporated into roadway pricing analysis. The study herein presents an effort to explore the role of attitudinal factors in drivers’ propensity toward using managed lanes. Model results boded for a significant contribution of attitudinal parameters in the model, both in terms of coefficients and model performance. This study provides a robust approach to quantify user heterogeneity in VOT and VOR and capture the impacts of attitudinal attributes in pricing valuation. The results of this study contribute to a better understanding on what attributes lead to higher or lower VOT and VOR and to what extent