A Decision Support System to Assess the Impacts of Placing Tolls along Interstate Highways.

摘要

As states continue to consider taking on more responsibility in transportation, a major issue StateDepartments of Transportation (DOTs) face relates to financing future transportationinvestments. A financing approach being considered includes the placement of tolls alongselected interstate highways where tolls are not currently collected. Questions of interest to stateDOT officials and transportation policy makers relate to the potential impacts of suchapproaches. The objective of this paper is to initiate the development of a decision supportsystem (DSS) to assist State Departments of Transportation in the evaluation of the impactsrelated to placing tolls on interstate highways. Anticipated impacts include capital and operatingcosts to implement the required toll collection strategies and technologies; expected changes inexisting demand along the interstate and alternate routes; potential toll revenue; and privacy andequity implications. With the aid of this DSS, a decisionmaker would be able to specify differenttoll system characteristics, add options such as desired levels of privacy and equity, and in amatter of minutes estimate capital and operating costs, forecast revenues, perform net presentvalue and payback period analyses for alternative toll collection systems. The paper also includesan illustrative example to demonstrate the application of the DSS to assess the impacts ofalternative toll approaches along a segment of Interstate 93 through Boston. The expectation isthat this DSS will be expanded to evaluate other financing approaches including congestionpricing strategies, vehicle miles traveled (VMT) based fees, and innovative fuel tax schemesindexed to inflation.