Traffic Flow: Exploring Dynamic vs. Static Toll Pricing in a Traffic Network Simulation Model
Client: CEE Prof. Abdelghani
Team: Nora Shora, Laura Tatsch
Faculty advisor: Barr Year: 2006
Documents: Final report (Word), final presentation (PPT)
Many cities across the world have experienced, and are currently experiencing, increased traffic on highways and urban networks. At the same time, roads and highways have a limited capacity and are only capable of transporting a limited number of travelers. An increase in the number of travelers has increased all of the following factors associated with travel: travel time, number of stops, travel costs, delays, air pollution, accidents, and noise level.
Road pricing is one tactic used as an effective demand management strategy to reduce traffic congestion and improve performance during peak periods in many cities. In our simulation model of Knoxville, TN we added tolls to certain roads in the network in order to acquire data that would help us distinguish whether changing tolls during peak hours would improve average travel time.
Several sets of simulations were run and the data was recorded. It was concluded that changing the toll prices in general did not have a major impact on the average travel time and average travel distance. However, static and dynamic pricing structure comparisons showed that dynamic prices yielded lower average travel and stop times than static prices.