Comparison of Different Toll Policies in the Dynamic Second-best Optimal Toll Design Problem: Case study on a Three-link network

 

 

Kateřina Staňková*, Geert Jan Olsder** and Michiel C.J. Bliemer***

*Networked Controlled System Team
Centre de recherche Grenoble
Rhône Alpes INRIA
655, avenue de l'Europe, 38334 Saint Ismier Cedex, France
T: +33476615322
F: +33476615477
E: katerina@stankova.net

**Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics
Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
Delft University of Technology
Mekelweg 4, 2628 CD, Delft, The Netherlands
T: +31152781912
F: +31152787245
E: G.J.Olsder@tudelft.nl

***Department of Transport & Planning
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences
Delft University of Technology
P.O. Box 5048, 2600 GA, Delft, The Netherlands
T: +31152784874
F: +31152783179
E: m.c.j.bliemer@tudelft.nl

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Abstract

 

In this paper, the dynamic optimal toll design problem is considered as a one leader-many followers hierarchical non-cooperative game. On a given network the road authority as the leader tolls some links in order to reach its objective, while travelers as followers minimize their perceived travel costs. So far toll has always been considered either as constant or as time-varying. Inspired by the San Diego's Interstate 15 congestion pricing project, in which heuristics with toll proportional to traffic flow are applied on a real two-link highway network, we consider toll as proportional to traffic flows in the network. On a three-link network we investigate various toll schemes and their influence on the outcome of the game for the road authority.
We show that the use of alternative toll schemes may improve system performance remarkably.


 

Keywords: Road pricing; dynamic optimal toll design problem; (inverse) Stackelberg games