Road Pricing Simulations: Traffic, Land Use and Welfare Impacts
Surabhi Gupta, Sukumar Kalmanje and Kara Kockelman, University of Texas at Austin, September 2004, 33 pp. (167242-1)
This work explores the traffic, land use and welfare impacts of road pricing in the Austin region, applying tolls to existing bridges, instituting a tolled cordon around the downtown area, and introducing planned toll roads. Different toll scenarios are examined, including fixed versus variable tolling, and tolls based on time of day, traffic, and travel distance. Austin-calibrated DRAM-EMPAL models are used to predict the future residential and work location distribution. Land use model outputs are used in a four-step travel demand model (TDM), and the resulting travel times are fed back into the TDM as needed, in order to obtain converged results. Joint mode and time of day choice models and multinomial destination choice models are used. The results include, traffic redistribution over time and space, location choice changes in the long term, and traveler welfare implications. In summary, the newly proposed toll roads in Austin are revenue generating and welfare improving. Bridge tolls would be successful in redistributing traffic, while the downtown appears highly sensitive to cordon tolls, which would be hard on commuters.
Keywords: Road Pricing, Application, ITLUM
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