Unrevealed Preferences: Unexpected Traveler Response to Pricing on Managed Lanes

Abstract

This paper addresses priced managed lane corridors, on which travelers may choose to pay a toll to travel on the managed lanes (MLs) to realize generally faster, more reliable travel than on the adjacent, toll-free general purpose lanes (GPLs). These lanes exist in many cities across the United States and are becoming more common as transportation agencies look for innovative ways to increase capacity and regulate demand for their roadways. Commonly, demand for these lanes is modeled assuming travelers choose between the MLs and GPLs primarily based on the cost and time savings of the MLs. Although the traffic and revenue forecasts generated by these models have generally succeeded in estimating revenue, newly available empirical data from Katy Freeway and North Tarrant Express shows these models fail to capture how individual drivers make decisions. Most travelers on those freeways were not choosing—they always used the same lane regardless of travel time and toll. Travelers that used both sets of lanes often made choices that appeared counter-intuitive based on travel time savings and toll rate. This research provides a preliminary investigation into this issue, which calls into question all prior ML travel-behavior research.

Performance Analyses of Information-Based Managed Lane Choice Decisions in a Connected Vehicle Environment

“…Note that this change assumes all travelers make economically rational decisions based on their VTT. It has been shown that most travelers do not (27,47) and that many travelers feel they save more travel time on MLs than is the case (45). Therefore, the assumption of economically rational decision making is likely inaccurate and revenue loss is probably not as high as 17.4%.…”

Personalized Choice Model for Managed Lane Travel Behavior

“…However, in the context of managed lanes, several studies have found that how travelers actually make choices deviates from the presumptions and conclusions of many SP studies. In contrast to SP studies, it has been observed that in real choice situations travel time information is not always available and used (24), and some travelers might persistently make the same choice (14).…”

“…Introduction of the loyalty variable was inspired by the data-driven analysis carried out by Burris and Brady (14). Based on data collected from Katy Freeway and the North Tarrant Express, they found that most travelers on these freeways always used the same type of lanes regardless of travel time and toll.…”

“…First, a traveler’s habits and travel experiences before each trip were exploited to construct a set of explanatory variables. This resolved certain fundamental issues in the established managed lane discrete choice models that assume that choice is mainly based on travel time saving and toll rate ( 14 ). Second, under a logit mixture framework, the distribution of random model parameters was updated with Bayesian inference according to personal trip history.…”

Integrated Safety and Operational Analysis of the Access Design of Managed Toll Lanes

“…In addition, the revenue generated from tolling is necessary for funding the system through the dynamic toll pricing. Dynamic tolls alter according to the traffic conditions along the facility and the time saved using MLs ( 8 ). For example, the toll price increases in congestion conditions to maintain the traffic flow in the facility ( 9 ).…”