Technologies for congestion pricing

Abstract Congestion pricing of high-demand roadways seeks to influence travelers’ route choices, trip timing, modes, and destination choices, to keep vehicles moving and avoid excessive congestion. This paper describes the use of various technologies to enable more advanced and cost-effective congestion pricing applications, and a credit-based policy to ensure equitable network access for all travelers. Video-based systems require cameras to capture the state of traffic, plus some form of communication back to users. Both DSRC and cellular-based systems use GPS data to price roads and toll users based on traffic conditions. DSRC employs roadside units (RSUs) to receive and send messages to in-vehicle DSRC units. A cellular-based system could use communications from cellular towers in combination with a smartphone, on-board diagnostics port (OBD-II), or pre-installed cellular chip. DSRC is a valuable technology to pilot congestion pricing at highly congested locations, such as bridges and major highways, while cellular communications enable congestion pricing across entire networks. VMT fees can be relatively simple, or variable in space and time, facilitating transportation-agency cost recovery. A next step for roadway management is congestion pricing (CP), to better reflect the marginal delay costs of one's travel choices. When coupled with travel credits, CP can better ensure welfare gains for most travelers.