Transportation's Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions ...

Congestion Pricing
Description
Congestion pricing is the application of
pricing to congested facilities in order to
reduce traffic on those facilities to
achieve an improved level of service. 10
Congestion pricing will have somewhat
lower overall VMT impacts than
universal pricing measures such as VMT
fees or pay-as-you-drive, because it will
be applied only to congested facilities.
However, this measure will decrease
congestion and thus will improve fuel
economy. In the rudimentary form of
either simple off-peak discounts or more
involved pricing structures, congestion
pricing has been implemented on a
number of tolled facilities in the U.S.,
such as the Dulles Greenway in
Northern Virginia; New Jersey Turnpike;
Midpoint and Cape Coral toll bridges in
Lee County, Florida; and State Road 91
from Riverside to Los Angeles.
However, it has not been implemented
on an areawide basis to-date.
While its most immediate application is
on roads and bridges that already are
Transportation’s Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Volume 2
Congestion Pricing
Benefits: Low-Moderate: 9-35 mmt CO2e in 2030
Direct Costs: High: $300 to $500 per tonne
Net Included Costs: Net Savings: -$500 per tonne
Confidence in Estimates: Low
• Benefits will be strongly dependent upon
operation of pricing system, geographic scale
applied, baseline congestion levels
Key Cobenefits and Impacts: Mixed
• Mobility decreases for some travelers,
increases for others
• Equity impacts will depend upon how
revenues are used
• Transportation revenue source provides
opportunities for reinvestment
Feasibility: Low-Moderate
• Limited applications (e.g., HOT lanes) proven
feasible
• Areawide fees significant enough to
measurably affect behavior unlikely to be
popular in the current political climate
Key Policy Options:
• Requirements or incentives for States or
metropolitan areas to implement congestion
pricing systems
tolled, congestion pricing also could be implemented on other limited-access facilities by
adding toll collection. To date it has been studied on at least six other major facilities in the
U.S. as well as for the Puget Sound region’s highway network. The broader-scale
application of this strategy beyond existing or proposed toll highway facilities is likely to
require the universal deployment of electronic toll collection technologies. This will
require coordination by a State or regional transportation agency (e.g., State DOT or MPO).
The U.S. DOT is encouraging greater experimentation in this area. In 2007, the
Department awarded $853 million in funding to five metro areas for Urban Partnership
Agreements to reduce congestion, which include a significant focus on tolling/pricing
strategies.
10 The term “congestion pricing” in this report is used to mean pricing of specific transportation
facilities or of all facilities within a region. “Cordon” or “area” pricing, discussed as a separate
strategy, can also be considered a form of congestion pricing, as it applies specifically to a
congested area (and potentially only to more congested times of day).
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