01697953

Component

The viability of pricing as an effective policy tool to manage road congestion is consensual among most scholars. It is often assumed that the main way to implement road pricing in practice is by mandatory congestion tolls. Attempts to implement congestion tolls in practice were very sporadic, and often unsuccessful. Extensive research was devoted to congestion tolls, as well as alternative mandatory incentive schemes. Much less attention was given to the option of positive incentive mechanisms with voluntary participation.The goal of this paper is to offer a conceptual evaluation of the key differences between the two alternative road pricing mechanisms, namely: congestion tolls and positive incentives. The authors also present some results of a preliminary governmentally managed pilot with positive incentives that was recently initiated in Israel, named “Going Green.” Publicly available results from this pilot illustrate possible behavioral response to rewarding road pricing scheme and it’s potential to reduce traffic congestion. This pilot adds to the very limited empirical evidence available to date and supports the potential of such policy implementation.Based on the presented evaluation the authors believe that positive incentives have the potential to overcome the political barrier, as well as other barriers, and enable effective congestion management by road pricing.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE25 Standing Committee on Congestion Pricing.

19-02187

English

18p

2019

Transportation Research Board 98th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; Maps; Tables

Congestion pricing; Incentives; Tolls

Israel

Finance; Highways; Operations and Traffic Management

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2019 Paper #19-02187

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 7 2018 9:42AM