An Evaluation Method for Toll Policy in Transportation

Tolling is generally considered to be a method for balancing the supply and demand of social resources. This paper explores the emergence and development of the transportation toll policy. It examines the influence of tolls on travelers´ route choices, and even the departure time choices. The modern toll policy is mainly designed to reduce traffic congestion. We list potential motivations for applying the toll policy to balance traffic supply and demand, and then uncover how it works. We discuss the approaches that evaluate the transportation toll pricing policy. Finally, by introducing the study case, California State Route 91, we apply the proposed method to compute the value of time and the value of reliability to evaluate the toll pricing policy on this study site. We also verify the actions and reactions of the toll policy in the practical transportation network.