Economics of Urban Highway Cogestion and Pricing

by McDonald, John F.; D'Ouville, Edmond L.; Liu, Louie Nan

• ISBN13: 9780792386315
• ISBN10: 0792386310
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-01
• Publisher: Kluwer Academic Pub

Summary

Economics of Urban Highway Congestion and Pricing offers the most extensive examination to date of the relationship between congestion tolls and highway capacity in the long run. This study breaks new ground in the economic theory of optimal road capacity by including theoretical contributions, empirical studies, and simulation experiments that all pertain to the general topic reflected in the title. The book is organized into four sections: 1) highway traffic flow; 2) commuter choice of tollways versus freeways; 3) congestion pricing in the short run; and 4) road capacity and pricing in the long run. In particular, the first section on highway traffic flow examines the chief models and empirical studies of vehicular flow on urban highways. The second section of the book is a theoretical and empirical examination of the choice that commuters make between urban tollways and freeways. The third section is devoted to congestion pricing in the short run, the time period in which the urban highway facilities are taken as given. This section is the most important part of the book from the standpoint of public policy. The fourth and last section of the book considers road capacity and pricing in the long run, with the concluding chapter gathering the authors' main results in one place and making recommendations both for current policy and for future research.

Table of Contents

List of Figures	vii
List of Tables	viii
Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	x
Introduction	1	(6)
PART I HIGHWAY TRAFFIC FLOW	7	(28)
An Engineering model of Traffic Flow	9	(6)
Highway Traffic Flow and the 'Uneconomic' Region of Production	15	(8)
An Empirical model of Highway Traffic Flow	23	(12)
PART II COMMUTER CHOICE OF TOLLWAYS VERSUS FREEWAYS	35	(16)
Theory of Route Choice and The value of Time	37	(6)
An Empirical Study of the Choice of Tollway or Freeway	43	(8)
PART III CONGESTION PRICING IN THE SHORT RUN	51	(82)
Congestion pricing in the Short Run: The Basic Model	53	(14)
Urban Highway Congestion: An Analysis of Second-Best Tolls	67	(18)
Mathematical Formulation of a Multiple-Period Congestion Pricing Model	85	(12)
A Simulation Study of Peak and Off-Peak Congestion Pricing	97	(18)
The California SR-91 Example of Value Pricing	115	(18)
PART IV ROAD CAPACITY AND PRICING IN THE LONG RUN	133	(100)
Road Capacity with Efficient Tolls	135	(6)
The Comparison of Optimal Road Capacities: No Toll Versus the Optimal Toll	141	(18)
The Long-Run Two-Road Model of Traffic Congestion	159	(12)
Optimal Road Capacity with Hyper-Congestion in the Absence of Tolls	171	(10)
A Model of Demand for Traffic Density	181	(24)
Appendix: A Long-Run, Two-Road Model	191	(14)
Demand Uncertainty, Optimal Capacity, and Congestion Tolls	205	(14)
Optimal Capacity for a Bottleneck and Sub-Optimal Congestion Tolls	219	(14)
Summary and Conclusions	233	(4)
Author Index	237	(2)
Subject Index	239