In congested cities throughout the world, governments are looking for ways to make better use of existing infrastructure and to limit the impacts of congestion on freight and public transport. The most common example is high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes whereby a lane is reserved for vehicles with either two or more, or three or more occupants. Lane differentiation can be achieved either by regulation, decreeing which classes of road users have the right to travel in which lanes, or through pricing, charging different tolls for different lanes. The HOT-lane concept employs both methods. The present paper is concerned almost entirely with the objective of economic efficiency. The value to society of the impacts of lane differentiation is measured by summing the economic benefits and costs regardless of to whom they accrue. The paper also examines the distributional implications for different policies for traffic with different values of time. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E213716.
Abstract