Road Pricing Simulations: Traffic, Land Use and Welfare Impacts for Austin, Texas

This paper explores the traffic, land use and welfare impacts of road pricing in the Austin region, introducing planned toll roads, implementing marginal cost pricing (MCP) on main roads, applying tolls to existing bridges, and instituting a downtown tolled cordon. Different toll scenarios are examined, including fixed versus variable tolling, and tolls based on time of day, traffic, and travel distance. The travel demand model (TDM) incorporates joint mode and time of day choice models and multinomial destination choice models. The resulting travel times and costs are fed back into the TDM in order to obtain converged results. Austin-calibrated DRAM-EMPAL models are used to predict the future residential and work location distribution and the models’ outputs are fed into the TDM for modeling future scenarios. The results include traffic redistribution over time and space, location choice changes in the long term, and traveler welfare implications. In summary, the newly proposed toll roads in Austin are revenue generating and travelers’ welfare improving. But, the estimated toll road project costs are predicted to exceed the estimated benefits. MCP on main roads reduces the total predicted travel time on these roads, and is estimated to improve welfare for the average Austin resident anywhere in the region, once revenues are redistributed. Bridge tolls are successful in redistributing traffic, while the downtown area appears highly sensitive to cordon tolls.