Without toll roads, users choices are based particularly on the travel time. When a toll road is introduced, drivers make a tradeoff between money and time when selecting a route for a trip by car. The difficulty is to establish users behaviours for integrating them in forecasting models. In Marseille, the first urban toll road in France was opened in September 1993: the "Tunnel Prado-Carenage". In this case, the toll is intended to pay off the investments. A research programme was carried out. Its goal is to have more information on: (1) the tunnel users; (2) the drivers behaviour; (3) the tunnel opening effects on the traffic; and (4) the parameters used for modelling which traduce the users willingness to pay for users willingness to pay for improved travel (cost of time, safety, comfort...), and the importance of each parameter in the final decision. Since January 1993, CETE (Centre d'Etudes Techniques de l'Equipement) Mediterranee implemented stated and revealed preferences observations to estimate the coefficients in disaggregate models representing the behaviours. With the two approaches (stated and revealed), estimated values of time for various categories of trips and users were obtained. A comparison between subjective and objective time saving is realised.
Abstract