Optimizing toll locations and levels in a road congestion pricing schemes by minimizing the deviation from marginal social cost pricing tolls

• To find second-best optimal toll locations and toll levels in a road traffic network, which maximize the social surplus, can be formulated as a bi-level optimization program. The bi-level program is both non-convex and non-smooth and therefore considered as a demanding optimization problem to solve. First-best optimal tolls can, however, easily be computed by solving a convex program, and this paper examines the possibility to make use of these first-best tolls when searching for second-best solutions. By formulating an optimization problem, which instead of maximizing the social surplus, search for the toll locations and toll levels which minimize the deviation from first-best tolls on a route-level, a mixed integer linear program is formulated. The approach of minimizing the deviation from first-best route tolls is applied to a Stockholm network model, and results are provided to evaluate the applicability of the approach.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Transportteknik och logistik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Transport Systems and Logistics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

bi-level optimization

road tolls

congestion pricing

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)