Texas A&M Transportation Institute» tolling

To toll or not to toll?: TTI examines the question

Debbie Murillo — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:37:16 +0000

With states increasingly considering tolls as a means to finance transportation infrastructure, there is a growing need to quickly assess the feasibility of potential tolling projects.

Toll roads and managed toll lanes, such as high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes, can alleviate congestion and offer a convenient alternative for road users. However, such tolled facilities must first demonstrate they are financially viable to be successful. With millions, even billions, of dollars at stake with potential toll projects, the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) is assisting the Texas State Comptroller of Public Accounts office by assessing the reasonableness of traffic and revenue reports regarding potential toll roads.

“Traffic and revenue reports contain an extensive amount of data, trends, calculations and assumptions,” explains Curtis Toews, an economist in the Revenue Estimating Division of the Comptroller’s office. “TTI‘s review of these reports helps ensure that decisions are made based on accurate information.”

In an effort to more quickly generate and review preliminary toll studies and reports with their multiple variables, an enhanced toll project screening model is being developed by Curtis Beaty, associate research engineer and program manager for TTI‘s Dallas Research and Implementation Office. This project is funded through TTI‘s University Transportation Center for Mobility (UTCM) and builds on the Toll Viability Screening Tool (TVST) developed by TTI in conjunction with the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) in a research project completed in 2004.

The enhanced model will have the ability to examine electronic toll collection, video toll collection, toll violation rates and revenue leakage (i.e., failure to collect revenue for every transaction captured). In addition to taking these items into account, this model will be accessible to a wider range of users by being solely built within Microsoft Excel®. (The previous TVST model required an add-on application to Excel that could cost several hundred dollars.)

“Both as an early screening tool and as a continuing reasonableness test, an enhanced toll project viability model will allow a user to simultaneously examine the interaction of multiple tolling variables and traffic scenarios so that agencies can make more informed decisions,” explains Beaty. “In addition, the enhanced screening tool will analyze the confidence of the resulting revenue estimates and the sensitivity of the model’s results to the input variables.”

While the enhanced model will offer great new capabilities and be a useful tool for those associated with toll road projects, Beaty believes more toll road research is needed: “Several new toll roads have been built in Texas over the last few years, and follow-up research on these roads (i.e., examining what was assumed will happen and is actually happening) would undoubtedly help us improve our initial studies for toll road feasibility reports.”

Life in the HOT Lane

Debbie Murillo — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:53:44 +0000

Despite the leveling off of traffic congestion as reported in the 2009 Urban Mobility Report, published by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) and discussed in this issue, the average traveler still needs 25 percent more time for trips.

Like their constituencies, local communities are stretching their traveling dollars further during difficult economic times. One way they are doing that is by finding innovative uses for the capacity they already have.

For the past 30 years or so, high-occupancy vehicle (or HOV) lanes have encouraged commuters to use alternatives, like taking a bus to work or carpooling with co-workers, which ultimately helps improve both air quality and traffic congestion. High occupancy toll (HOT) lanes represent the next step in the evolution of the high-occupancy concept.

“HOT lanes allow drivers to pay a toll and still use the HOV lane, even if they don’t have enough passengers to meet the HOV requirements,” explains Senior Research Engineer Ginger Goodin, manager of TTI’s Austin Office. Goodin is principal investigator on a Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) project developing a toolkit of resources for use in evaluating the need for and implementing HOT lanes.

So who decides how much a commuter pays to drive in “the fast lane”? Value pricing — or setting the price of a service based on supply and demand, and how the consumer perceives its value — is used to set the tolls for HOT lanes. To maintain uncongested travel (important in providing HOV users an incentive to rideshare), the price for other vehicles in the lane varies based on the level of demand in the lane. Often tolls vary given the time of day, with commuters more willing to pay a higher toll at rush hour than, say, at 1:00 p.m.

As of 2009, approximately 150 HOV facilities existed in over 20 metropolitan areas in North America. Currently there are seven operational HOT facilities in the U.S., and FHWA is encouraging their broader implementation nationwide.

The FHWA toolkit includes a brochure, FAQ sheet, checklist of relevant issues to consider, case studies of successful HOT lane implementation projects and a video. These tools are aimed at decision-makers, such as elected officials or transportation policy board members, responsible for setting the transportation agenda in their communities, and practitioners, responsible for implementing those decisions. The toolkit helps users assess the appropriateness of HOT lanes for their communities and provides guidance for how to implement them.

Also in the toolkit is a set of screening criteria developed by FHWA for stakeholders to use in implementing HOT lanes. The criteria look at performance, facility and institutional considerations regarding conversion of HOV lanes for HOT use. Using these criteria, a community can assess whether or not a particular HOV facility would make a good candidate for conversion to a HOT lane.

“TTI has developed a set of tools that puts good information in the hands of those who need it,” explains Jessie Yung, program manager at FHWA. “The toolkit will help communities meet their local transportation needs.”

Life in the HOT Lane

Chris Sasser — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 18:33:08 +0000

The HOT lane shown above allows Houston drivers the option to escape congested freeways

Texas A&M Transportation Institute» tolling

To toll or not to toll?: TTI examines the question

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