Economics of Urban Highway Congestion and Pricing

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.

Klappentext

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.

Inhalt
I Highway Traffic Flow.- 1. An Engineering Model of Traffic Flow.- 2 Highway Traffic Flow and the 'Uneconomic' Region of Production.- 3 An Empirical Model of Highway Traffic Flow.- II Commuter Choice of Tollways Versus Freeways.- 4. Theory of Route Choice and the Value of Time.- 5. An Empirical Study of the Choice of Tollway or Freeway.- III Congestion Pricing in the Short Run.- 6. Congestion Pricing in the Short Run: The Basic Model.- 7. Urban Highway Congestion: An Analysis of Second-Best Tolls.- 8. Mathematical Formulation of a Multiple-Period Congestion Pricing Model.- 9. A Simulation Study of Peak and Off-Peak Congestion Pricing.- 10. The California SR-91 Example of Value Pricing.- IV Road Capacity and Pricing in the Long Run.- 11. Road Capacity with Efficient Tolls.- 12. The Comparison of Optimal Road Capacities: No Toll Versus the Optimal Toll.- 13. The Long-Run Two-Road Model of Traffic Congestion.- 14. Optimal Road Capacity with Hyper-Congestion in the Absence of Tolls.- 15. A Model of Demand for Traffic Density.- 16. Demand Uncertainty, Optimal Capacity, and Congestion Tolls.- 17. Optimal Capacity for a Bottleneck and Sub-Optimal Congestion Tolls.- Summary and Conclusions.- Author Index.