Article Comment: Dynamic pricing for tollway journeys

17 June 2005

Most tollways (such as Citylink in Melbourne, Australia) are an all or nothing affair. Drivers either use the tollway or find another path to their destination. The tollway's charges are usually static.

In a Wired magazine article "Toll Roads Tackle Traffic", another approach is described using the (FasTrak) I-15 roadway in San Diego as an example. The I-15 roadway has both 'free' lanes that can be used at no charge and 'tolled' lanes which reverse to support peak periods. There are base prices that change by time of day during peak periods, but these can be overriden when traffic is heavy.

The tollway's congestion is evaluated every six minutes to decide whether the published prices should be used, or whether dynamic pricing should raise a tollway journey's price. Raised prices will persuade some drivers against using the tollway reducing the tollway's congestion (but increasing it on the 'free' lanes). Prices are raised as congestion increases and capped at $8.

From a billing perspective this means that:

• Drivers will usually be charged default prices that change by their journey's time-of-day.
• The tollway 'network' must assess and publish the 'current' price to drivers. The price may exceed the published default prices and price/time-period details must be forwarded to billing.
• Billing must rate journeys based on whether dynamic or default prices applied.

Further explanations of the FasTrak I-15 are listed, including a map indicating which sections of the I-15 are tolled.

Tags: Billing, Pricing, Tollways, Electronic Tags