HOT or not

Michael Janson and David Levinson

Research in Transportation Economics, 2014, vol. 44, issue C, 21-32

Abstract: The Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has added MnPASS High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes on two freeway corridors in the Twin Cities. While not the first HOT lanes in the country, the MnPASS lanes are the first implementation of road pricing in Minnesota and possess a dynamic pricing schedule. Tolls charged to single occupant vehicles (SOVs) are adjusted every 3 min according to HOT lane vehicle density. Given the infancy of systems like MnPASS, questions remain about drivers' responses to toll prices. Three field experiments were conducted on the corridors during which prices were changed. Data from the field experiments as well as two years of toll and traffic data were analyzed to measure driver responses to pricing changes. Driver elasticity to price was positive with magnitudes less than 1.0. This positive relationship between price and demand is in contrast with the previously held belief that raising the price would discourage demand. In addition, drivers consistently paid between approximately $60–120 per hour of travel time savings, much higher than the average value of time. Reasons for these results is discussed as well as the implications these results have on the pricing of HOT lanes.

Keywords: Road pricing; Toll roads; Demand elasticity; High-occupancy toll lanes; Managed lanes; High-occupancy vehicles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0739885914000092
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:retrec:v:44:y:2014:i:c:p:21-32

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
https://shop.elsevie ... _01_ooc_2&version=01

DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2014.04.008

Access Statistics for this article

Research in Transportation Economics is currently edited by M. Dresner

More articles in Research in Transportation Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().