Alternative pollution permit systems for transportation networks based on origin/destination pairs and paths

In this paper, we introduce two new pollution permit systems for congested transportation networks based, respectively, on origin/destination pairs and on paths. We derive the governing equilibrium conditions for each system, provide the variational inequality formulations, and compare these permit systems to the existing link-based permit system model. As in the case of the link-based permit system model, we show that either new system achieves the environmental quality standard provided that the initial license allocations are set accordingly. We also prove that, given the equilibrium solution to the origin/destination permit system problem, we can construct from it a solution to the path-based permit system problem and vice versa. We discuss qualitative properties of the equilibrium solution patterns and propose an algorithm for the computation of the patterns for both models. Finally, we present a numerical example that illustrates the permit systems. In light of this work, transportation planning agencies now have available alternative permit systems for their use for pollution reduction.