Level of Motorway Toll : Theory and Practice

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This study investigated optimal level of toll of urban expressways. In order to address this theme, we reviewed several theory of pricing including the pricing theory for public utilities. Marginal pricing, Ramsey pricing, congestion pricing, second-part tariff and peak-load pricing are included. At the same time we emcompassed the management system, say BOT (build, operate and transfer). Present system requires that the construction cost, maintenance cost and operating cost should be paid by road users in a certain period (30 to 50 years). If we are free from this constraint, we could propose a variety of pricing systems. Here we consider three alternative pricing systems, (1) cost-based pricing, (2) user benefit-based pricing, and (3) traffic demand management (TDM)-oriented pricing.Our result is that the user benefit-based pricing is elementary and TDM-based pricing is secondary. Congestion pricing is a TDM pricing. Now we are testing a variety of TDM pricing techniques to Hanshin Expressways Network. Results will be published in a near future.