EFFECT OF ROAD PRICING ON TRAFFIC VOLUME AND TOLL REVENUE IN GRID NETWORK

Abstract

This paper proposes an analytical model for analyzing the effect of road pricing in a grid network. The model is based on a continuous approximation where origins and destinations are uniformly distributed and the travel demand is expressed as the exponential function of the travel cost. Analytical expressions for the traffic volume in the toll area and the toll revenue are obtained for a rectangular city with a grid network. The analytical expressions demonstrate how the size and shape of the toll area and the toll level affect the traffic volume and the toll revenue. The model explicitly considers through, inward, outward, and city traffic, thus allowing us to assess the effect of road pricing on each traffic separately. Comparisons between cordon and area pricing and between grid and radial-arc networks show that area pricing is superior to cordon pricing and that reducing the traffic volume is easier in the grid network than in the radial-arc network.