A framework for evaluating the dynamic impacts of a congestion pricing policy for a transportation socioeconomic system

This paper provides a modeling framework based on the system dynamics approach by which policy makers can understand the dynamic and complex nature of traffic congestion within a transportation socioeconomic system representation of a metropolitan area. This framework offers policy makers an assessment platform that focuses on the short- and long-term system behaviors arising from an area-wide congestion pricing policy along with other congestion mitigation policies. Since only a few cities in the world have implemented congestion pricing and several are about to do so, a framework that helps policy makers to understand the impacts of congestion pricing is currently quite relevant. Within this framework, improved bus and metro capacities contribute to the supply dynamics which in turn affect the travel demand of individuals and their choice of different transportation modes. Work travel and social networking activities are assumed to generate additional travel demand dynamics that are affected by travelers perception of the level of service of the different transportation modes, their perception of the congestion level, and the associated traveling costs. It is assumed that the, population, tourism and employment growth are exogenous factors that affect demand. Furthermore, this paper builds on a previously formulated approach where fuzzy logic concepts are used to represent linguistic variables assumed to describe consumer perceptions about transportation conditions. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.