Improving our Understanding of How Highway Congestion and Price Affect Travel Demand

Abstract

Driver response to congestion and road pricing is an essential element to forecasting the future use of roadway systems and estimating the effect that pricing has on demand and route choice. Though many studies have been conducted in the past and revenue studies are routinely done for proposed toll roads, there is still a need for improving the behavioral basis for forecast. The objective of this project was to develop mathematical descriptions of the full range of highway user behavioral responses to congestion, travel time reliability, and pricing. These descriptions were achieved by mining existing data sets. The report estimates a series of nine utility equations, progressively adding variables of interest. This research explores the effect on demand and route choice of demographic characteristics, car occupancy, value of travel time, value of travel time reliability, situational variability, and an observed toll aversion bias. The primary audience for this research is professionals who develop travel demand and traffic forecasts. Policy makers may also have an interest in the behavioral findings that could have policy implications.

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