01595118

Component

High occupancy toll lanes (HOT) are increasingly popular facilities as they allow to maintain high travel speeds for public transportation and promote ride-sharing, while efficiently utilizing the lane excess capacity. Understanding the demand for toll lanes and the factors that affect it is critical in developing tolling strategies and pricing schemes. Drivers that choose whether or not to use a toll lane are commonly shown variable message signs with toll rates and in sometime travel information in various forms. They then make their decisions based on partial and inaccurate knowledge of traffic conditions. Previous research has shown that drivers systematically mispercieve travel times. This paper develops two models for toll lane choice scenarios using data from stated preference experiments. The first model predicts the travel times that drivers expect to experience depending on the type and content of information they are provided with. The second model predicts the choice whether or not to use the toll lane. The results show that drivers’ expected travel times on the free lanes are strongly affected by the information provided to them on the VMS. In particular, in the absence of precise travel time information drivers use the toll rate itself as an indicator to the expected travel times. In the choice model, there are significant differences in preferences and the related values of time among drivers. In particular, there are large differences in values of time between drivers who pay the toll themselves and those whose employers pay the tolls.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE25 Standing Committee on Congestion Pricing. Alternate title: Choice to Use a Toll Lane and Effect of Information Provided to Drivers

01584066

16-4318

English

17p

2016

Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Drivers; High occupancy toll lanes; Information dissemination; Travel time; Variable message signs

Highways; Operations and Traffic Management

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2016 Paper #16-4318

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 12 2016 5:54PM