Assessment of Changes in Toll Fares in Conditions of Increased Traffic Load

The purpose of the study is to assess changes of toll fares used on toll collection points. When toll road is operating in an urban environment, the operator is inevitably faced with the need to adapt intelligent transport system to the conditions of an ever-increasing volume and changing composition of the traffic. Such changes have a direct impact on the capacity of the toll road, in particular at toll collection points. The conducted research is aimed at analyzing the method of reducing the traffic load at the toll collection points during peak hours by making changes to the toll fares aimed at uniform distribution of traffic flow throughout the day. As an example, a toll collection point on the main road direction of the Western High-Speed Diameter toll road was chosen.

Materials and methods. A discrete-event simulation model developed in the AnyLogic software was used to assess the quality of operation and throughput of the toll collection point. The software has a sufficient level of detail to reproduce the operation of the toll collection system, and allows managing all the necessary parameters of the system and traffic flow. Analysis of the data obtained from the simulated model experiments was carried out using the statistical package R.

Results. As part of the study, the operational characteristics of the toll collection point, in particular its threshold capacity, were determined, and, if it was exceeded, the length of the emerging queue was determined. Taking into account the operator’s risks arising from the formation of a traffic congestion, an approach was proposed to change the toll fare policy of the toll road by using a more flexible fares based on dividing the day time fare into several time intervals and using increasing coefficients for toll fare when paying for travel during peak hours. Using the example of toll booth of the Western High-Speed Diameter, the increasing coefficients of the cost of travel at a rush hour were considered, and the risks of reducing the operator’s income from toll collection were assessed.

Conclusion. Based on the results obtained, an assessment of the effectiveness of the application of measures to change the existing toll fare policy, aimed at optimizing the traffic flow of a toll road, can be carried out. In addition, such an analysis can be used to assess the investment attractiveness of a project, develop a toll fare policy, increase income and other similar tasks. Further research can be aimed at increasing the economic indicators of toll road projects, and developing additional mathematical tools used in the formation of toll fare policy.

1. Talavirya A.YU., Laskin M.B. An approach to risk assessment of a toll road operator. Statistika i Ekonomika = Statistics and Economics. 2021; 18(3): 12-26. (In Russ.)

2. Saharan S., Bawa S., Kumar N. Dynamic pricing techniques for Intelligent Transportation System in smart cities: A systematic review. Computer Communications. 2020; 150: 603-625.

3. Clements L. M., Kockelman K. M., Alexander W. Technologies for congestion pricing. Research in Transportation Economics. 2020; 100863: 1-9.

4. Milenkovic M., Glavic D., Mladenovic M. Decision-Support Framework for Selecting the Optimal Road Toll Collection System. Journal of Advanced Transportation. 2018: 1-16.

5. Holguín-Veras J., Encarnación T., GonzálezCalderón C. A. User perception of fairness of timeof-day pricing and other typical toll discounts. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 2020; 137: 560-581.

6. Danko J., Gulewicz V. Insight through innovation: a dynamic approach to demand based toll plaza lane staffing. Proceedings of Winter Simulation Conference. 1994: 1116-1123.

7. Gonzales E. J., Christofa E. Empirical assessment of bottleneck congestion with a constant and peak toll: San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. EURO Journal on Transportation and Logistics. 2014; 3: 267-288.

8. Golob T.F. Joint models of attitudes and behavior in evaluation of the San Diego I-15 congestion pricing project. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice. 2001; 35; 6: 495–514.

9. Eliasson J. Lessons from the Stockholm congestion charging trial. Transport Policy. 2008; 15; 6: 395-404.

10. Börjesson M., Eliasson J., Hugosson M.B. &Brundell-Freij, K. The Stockholm congestion charges—5 years on. Effects, acceptability and lessons learnt. Transport Policy. 2012; 20: 1–12.

11. Tsai J.-F., Li S.-C. Cordon tolling for mixed traffic flow. Transportmetrica A: Transport Science. 2019; 15; 2: 1662-1687.

12. Swami H., Bari C., Dhamaniya A. Developing Policy Framework of Dynamic Toll Pricing in India. Transportation Research Procedia. 2021; 52: 605-612.

13. Amorim M., Lobo A., Couto A. Tolling motorways in the time of economic downturn: the case of Portugal. Transport. 2019; 34; 2: 146-154.

14. Murata K., Kawakami T. Evaluation of a Road Pricing Method Based on Demand Distribution in Micro Traffic Simulation. 2021 IEEE International Conference on Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops and other Affiliated Events (PerCom Workshops). 2021: 257-262.

15. Xu D., Guo X., Zhang G. Constrained optimization for bottleneck coarse tolling. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological. 2019; 128: 1-22.

16. He X., Jiang S., Zhong L., Sun Q. Optimization of Toll Plaza Based on Progressive Analysis. 2018 37th Chinese Control Conference (CCC). 2018: 7961-7968.

17. Kim S. The toll plaza optimization problem: Design, operations, and strategies. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review. 2009;45; 1: 125-137.

18. Drivers are already using 700 thousand WHSD transponders. News [Internet]. Ofitsial’nyy internet-sayt operatora OOO «Magistral’ severnoy stolitsy» = Official website of the operator LLC «Highway of the Northern Capital». Available from: https://nch-spb.com/media/news/driversuse-already-700-thousand-transponders-zsd/. (cited 20.07.2021). (In Russ.)

19. 10 years ago, the first transponder in Russia was issued at the WHSD office; since then, more than half a billion transactions have been made on the highway. News [Internet]. Ofitsial’nyy internetsayt operatora OOO «Magistral’ severnoy stolitsy» = Official website of the operator LLC «Highway of the Northern Capital». Available from: https://nchspb.com/media/news/10-let-nazad-v-ofise-zsd-bylvydan-pervyy-v-rossii-transponder-s-tekh-por-namagistrali-soversheno-b/. (cited 20.07.2021). (In Russ.)

20. Traffic flow on the WHSD: results of the first half of 2021. News [Internet]. Ofitsial’nyy internetsayt operatora OOO «Magistral’ severnoy stolitsy» = Official website of the operator LLC «Highway of the Northern Capital». Available from: https://nchspb.com/media/news/transportnyy-potok-na-zsditogi-pervogo-polugodiya-2021/. (cited 20.07.2021). (In Russ.)

21. Territories of growth: what kind of future is being built in St. Petersburg. Real Estate [Internet]. Ofitsial’nyy internet-sayt delovoy «Delovoy Peterburg» = Official website of the business «Business Petersburg». Available from: https://www.dp.ru/a/2021/05/24/Territorii_rosta_kakoe_b. (cited 20.07.2021). (In Russ.)

22. From place to barrier. News [Internet]. Ofitsial’nyy internet-sayt gazety «Kommersant» = Official website of the newspaper «Kommersant». Available from: https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4836866. (cited 20.07.2021). (In Russ.)

23. Appendix No. 1 to Order No. 23 dated November 23, 2020 On approval of the Basic Tariffs for travel on the Western High-Speed Diameter road 1, the Basic Transponder tariffs for travel on the Western High-Speed Diameter road and the cost of Additional Services Tariff options to the Basic tariff «Transponder» [Internet]. Ofitsial’nyy internetsayt operatora OOO «Magistral’ severnoy stolitsy» = Official website of the operator LLC «Highway of the Northern Capital». Available from: https://nch-spb.com/upload/iblock/341/Priozheniya-_1_2-k-Prikazu-_23-ot-23.11.2020.pdf. (cited 20.07.2021). (In Russ.)

24. Appendix No. 1 to Order No. 009/2021-T dated April 20, 2021 Tariffs for travel along the section from the Moscow Ring Road to Solnechnogorsk of the M-11 «Moscow St. Petersburg» highway [Internet]. Ofitsial’nyy internet-sayt kompanii OOO «Severo-Zapadnaya kontsessionnaya kompaniya» = Official website of the North-West Concession Company LLC. Available from: https:/M/m11-neva.ru/viewfile.php?id=6511&ib=9. (cited 20.07.2021). (In Russ.)

25. Appendix No. 2 to Order No. 009/2021T dated April 20, 2021 Tariffs for travel along the section from MKAD to Solnechnogorsk of the M-11 «Moscow St. Petersburg» highway [Internet]. Ofitsial’nyy internet-sayt kompanii OOO «SeveroZapadnaya kontsessionnaya kompaniya» = Official website of the North-West Concession Company LLC. Available from: https://m11-neva.ru/viewfile.php?id=6512&ib=9. (cited 20.07.2021). (In Russ.)