The economics of truck toll lanes (original) (raw)

Economic and Financial Feasibility of Truck Toll Lanes

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2003

The economic and financial feasibility of heavy-truck toll lanes was analyzed. This research expanded the line of inquiry of previous researchers by analyzing toll lanes for exclusive use by heavy trucks (i.e., large size and capacity). Implementation of such a toll system was studied relative to productivity changes, toll-lane fees, users' travel time and vehicle operating cost savings, and impact on infrastructure costs. The economic benefits were estimated using the Highway Design and Maintenance Standards Model developed by the World Bank. The analyses, complemented with sensitivity analyses of key variables, indicate that heavy-truck lanes are economically and financially viable.

Dedicated Lanes, Tolls and ITS Technology

2009

This paper reviews the potential benefits from separating cars and trucks onto different lanes or roads while treating road infrastructure as given. U.S. studies of mixed traffic operations, lane restrictions and differential speed limits do not provide consistent evidence whether separating cars and trucks either facilitates traffic flows or reduces accident rates. Analysis with an economic model reveals that the

The merits of separating cars and trucks

Journal of Urban Economics, 2008

Truck-only lanes and tollways are under study as tools to combat road congestion, enhance safety and reduce other external costs of road traffic. This paper investigates the potential benefits from separating cars and trucks onto different lanes or routes while treating road infrastructure as given. The benefits are found to depend on several factors: the relative volumes of cars and trucks, the congestion delay and safety hazards that each vehicle type imposes, values of travel time for each type, and lane capacity indivisibilities. The optimal assignment of vehicles to road capacity can be supported using tolls that are differentiated by vehicle type and lane. Lane access restrictions usually cannot support the optimum and may well provide no benefit at all. Creating a toll lane for one vehicle type is generally more effective. The benefits of all forms of intervention are sensitive to whether the proportions of cars and trucks are commensurate with lane capacities.

Optimal tolls for multi-class traffic: Analytical formulations and policy implications

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2009

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / t r a toll ratio found in the numerical experiments. This suggests that the tolls for large trucks are set on the basis of revenue generation principles while the passenger car tolls are being set based on a mild form of welfare maximization. This leads to a suboptimal cross-subsidization of passenger car traffic in detriment of an important sector of the economy.

A Bi-Level Framework for Pricing of High-Occupancy Toll Lanes

TRANSPORT, 2014

As a freeway operational management strategy, High-Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes have been deployed to manage the demand for High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes by adjusting the tolls. By doing so, the capacity of freeways with such lanes can be used more efficiently. Periodically, setting the right amount of toll in accordance with the time-varying demand is a key to successful operation of HOT lanes; however, this is often difficult because travellers have heterogeneous willingness to pay for the toll and traffic conditions vary as the demand changes due to the imposition of tolls. This paper proposed an algorithm to determine the optimal level of toll for minimizing the total delay collectively spent by both HOVs and low-occupancy vehicles. Based on real-world traffic and survey data obtained from Gyungbu expressway in South Korea, a case study is presented to verify the applicability of the developed algorithm. The results from the case study show that the proactive dynamic pricing ...

Economic Feasibility of Exclusive Vehicle Facilities

Transportation Research Record, 1991

A microcomputer program called "exclusive vehicle facilities" (EVFS) that determines the economic feasibility of separating light vehicles from heavy vehicles on a given section of controlled-access highway by designating existing lanes and constructing new lanes to be used exclusively by light or heavy vehicles is described. On the basis of user inputs to a spreadsheet user interface, EVFS calculates the net present value, benefit-cost ratio, and other performance measures of the alternative exclusive vehicle facility specified. The three possible lane use policies allowed within EVFS are mixed-, light-, and heavy-vehicle lanes. EVFS accounts for the following potential benefits or cost savings both for person and for freight travel: (a) travel time savings; (b) vehicle operating cost savings; (c) accident cost savings (fatalities, injuries, and property damage), because of less severe accidents by separating light and heavy vehicles; and (d) queuing delay savings because...

The impact of truck access restriction on toll road traffic performance

MATEC Web of Conferences

The freight vehicle access restriction policy in 2011 has had an impact on the performance of the Jakarta Intra Urban Toll way (JIUT) system. Though most of the truck operators are not in favour of this policy, truck restriction has become common strategy to reduce congestion in many cities in the world. The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of the existence of trucks in the traffic stream on the JIUT system. The analysis will show the impact of access restriction on the toll road performance from a macroscopic point of view, which is represented by the speed - flow - density model. The model will be calibrated by the data of 24-hour observation in a certain segment of JIUT. The model when the trucks are prohibited to use in that condition will be compared to the one when the trucks are allowed to travel. The difference between both models will indicate the impact of the policy. The comparison between both conditions shows a 28.17% better speed performance based on free...

A dynamic pricing strategy for high occupancy toll lanes

High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes are emerging as a solution to the underutilization of High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and also a means to generate revenue for the State Depart- ments of Transportation. This paper proposes a method to determine the toll price dynam- ically in response to the changes in traffic condition, and describes the procedures for estimating the essential parameters. Such parameters include expected delays, available capacity for toll-paying vehicles and distribution of travelers’ value of time (VOT). The objective function of the proposed pricing strategy can be flexibly modified to minimize delay, maximize revenue or combinations of specified levels of delay and revenue. Real- world data from a 14-mile of freeway segment in the San Francisco Bay Area are used to demonstrate the applicability and feasibility of the proposed method, and findings and implications from this case study are discussed.

The Economic Effects of Highway Widening: Tolled Lanes vs. General-Purpose Lanes – Using an Integrated Impact Model

Highway expansion projects in large metropolitan areas are usually contentious. What are the full effects of highway capacity gains and who wins and who loses? This research elaborates our earlier network impact modeling work in two important directions. First, we extend our modeling capability to include highway lanes that are tolled. Second, we apply the new model to an important prototype application, the (recently) private 10-mile segment of California SR91. The possible widening of this route via extra tolled or extra general-purpose lanes has been the subject of considerable controversy. We show that our approach can shed light on key elements of such controversies and, thereby, possibly reduce political conflict and misunderstanding. We also show that whereas congestion tolls are widely presumed to be efficient, the efficiency outcomes are complex when only a very small part of the network is tolled.