Article ID: | iaor20115841 |
Volume: | 45 |
Issue: | 6 |
Start Page Number: | 845 |
End Page Number: | 851 |
Publication Date: | Jul 2011 |
Journal: | Transportation Research Part B |
Authors: | Fosgerau Mogens |
Keywords: | bottlenecks, congestion, traffic flow, tolls |
This paper considers a congested bottleneck. A fast lane reserves a more than proportional share of capacity to a designated group of travelers. Travelers are otherwise identical and other travelers can use the reserved capacity when it would otherwise be idle. The paper shows that such a fast lane is always Pareto improving under Nash equilibrium in arrival times at the bottleneck and inelastic demand. It can replicate the arrival schedule and queueing outcomes of a toll that optimally charges a constant toll during part of the demand peak. Within some bounds, the fast lane scheme is still welfare improving when demand is elastic.