Cordon-Based Pricing Schemes for Mixed Urban-Freeway Networks using Macroscopic Fundamental Diagrams

The development of traffic models based on macroscopic fundamental diagrams (MFD) enables many real-time control strategies for urban networks, including cordon-based pricing schemes. However, most existing MFD-based pricing strategies are designed only to optimize the traffic-related performance, without considering the revenue collected by operators. In this study, we investigate cordon-based pricing schemes for mixed networks with urban networks and freeways. In this system, heterogeneous commuters choose their routes based on the user equilibrium principle. There are two types of operational objective for operating urban networks: (1) to optimize the urban network’s performance, that is, to maximize the outflux; and (2) to maximize the revenue for operators. To compare those two objectives, we first apply feedback control to design pricing schemes to optimize the urban network’s performance. Then, we formulate an optimal control problem to obtain the revenue-maximization pricing scheme. With numerical examples, we illustrate the difference between those pricing schemes.

Implementing Congestion Tolls on Currently Free Highways With Public–Private Partnerships: What Are the Financial and Economic Benefits?

A trillion dollars in Interstate highway improvement and modernization work has been deferred due to lack of funding. More than half of Interstate and other freeway and expressway lane miles are classified as urban. Therefore, one approach that could be considered to generate needed revenue for freeway improvements in urban areas is implementing congestion-based tolls on freeways during peak periods when they are congested. Such an approach has been implemented in the Washington, DC metro area, on the I-66 freeway inside the Capital Beltway in Northern Virginia. This article demonstrates how an analyst may estimate the financial and economic benefits of a concept involving imposition of congestion-based tolls on the entire urban freeway network, during peak periods only, in conjunction with transit service improvements using automated transit vehicles. Furthermore, the article evaluates potential benefits from using a public–private partnership for implementation of the concept.