EAGER/Collaborative Research: From Pricing to Cap-and-Trade: Analysis and Design of Quantity-based Approach to Congestion Management

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This EArly-Concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) collaborative research project will explore a new and promising travel demand management strategy, inspired by various cap-and-trade schemes aiming to reduce greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. Traffic congestion continues to threaten the economic prosperity and quality of life around the world. It is widely acknowledged that demand management strategies could help alleviate traffic congestion, and if properly implemented, they could be effective and cost-efficient. The cap-and-trade schemes considered in this research seek to couple direct travel demand restrictions with a trading mechanism. Because such a scheme typically involves creating mobility credits and trading them in a market, it is also known as a tradable credit scheme. As an early exploration of this idea, the project will directly involve economists that will provide input to each research task and as part of the research analytical tools to answer critical design and implementation issues will be sought. Agent-based simulation will be used as the main evaluation tool for the proposed analytical framework and design concepts. Based on this simulation platform, the research will compare tradable credit schemes with traditional travel demand management strategies such as congestion pricing, and validate the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed schemes with varying behavioral travel assumptions.If successful, the project could provide a meaningful bridge between transportation and economics on the issue of cap-and-trade and research findings would be shared to advance both fields. The work could shift the current paradigm associated with traffic congestion management policies. The findings from this research could also enhance choices among these policies and help provide for their prioritization. Accordingly, the research will be incorporated in education activities at both universities by offering new materials and case studies within the transportation curricula. Finally, research results will be broadly disseminated through a variety of media.