Variable tolling starts in Lee County, Florida
"Avoid the rush, pay half as much!"
On August 3, tolls on the Midpoint and Cape Coral bridges in Lee County, Florida, began to vary based on the time of day. Bridge travelers can now obtain a 50 percent discount on their toll by traveling immediately prior to or after the morning and evening rush hours. A kick-off ceremony headed by USDOT Deputy Secretary Mort Downey, Lee County Commissioner John Albion, and FDOT District 1 Secretary David Twiddy began the toll discounts.
Just how many people will alter their driving habits to receive this discount, and the impact this will have on congestion, is currently unknown. CUTR is conducting a federally-sponsored study to determine the answers to these and other questions related to the use of variable pricing tolls.
Variable pricing is not a new concept; it has been widely used in many industries throughout the U.S. for decades--matinee prices at the movies or less expensive phone calls on nights and weekends. Industry has found variable pricing to be an effective way to regulate demand for a commodity--in periods of peak demand, simply charge higher rates to encourage consumers to use the commodity during periods when excess capacity exists. In theory, this should also work to reduce traffic congestion on toll highways and bridges, but the concept has proven difficult to test on U.S. facilities. The Federal Highway Administration's Value Pricing Program provides money to implement variable (value) pricing pilot projects. Since its origin in the 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act and its rebirth in the 1998 Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, only three other projects have progressed to implementation--on a privately-owned toll road running in the median of State Road 91 in California; on a high-occupancy toll (HOT) lane on State Road 15 near San Diego; and on a HOT lane in Houston.
With so few pilot projects, little is currently known regarding variable pricing's impact in the U.S. How will motorists react to pricing incentives? How many will switch travel times, and at what price? Will it significantly impact congestion? CUTR's study will determine this impact in Lee County and will develop equations to allow this valuable information to be transferred to other locations across the U.S.
Telephone surveys and roadside interviews will be conducted relating the altering of travel time to independent variables such as trip purpose, toll discount, trip length, driver's household income, driver's household type, driver's education level, and driver's age. Other cities can then enter their own data into these equations in order to obtain a rough estimate of the impact of variable pricing in their area.
Aside from multiple telephone and roadside surveys, CUTR will collect and analyze an extensive amount of traffic data in Lee County, including detailed transaction records on each vehicle travelling across the Midpoint and Cape Coral bridges, data from the Lee County Department of Transportation's extensive traffic counting program, queue length counts at the toll plazas, travel time runs, average vehicle occupancy counts, transit usage, and speed measurements. All of these data are necessary to fully document and understand the impact of variable pricing.
For further information, contact CUTR Research Associate Mark Burris at (813) 974-9809, burris@ cutr.usf.edu.
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