On a Flexible Car Use Restriction Policy: Theory and Experiment

Rui Jiang (), Xiao Han (), Xiao-Yan Sun (), Kai-Jia Sun (), Wen-Xu Wang (), H. M. Zhang (), Bo-Yu Zhang () and Zi-You Gao ()
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Rui Jiang: Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Xiao Han: Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China
Xiao-Yan Sun: School of Management Science and Engineering, Guangxi University of Finance Economics, Nanning 530007, China
Kai-Jia Sun: School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Wen-Xu Wang: School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
H. M. Zhang: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Davis, California 95616
Bo-Yu Zhang: School of Mathematical Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Zi-You Gao: Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Big Data Application Technologies for Comprehensive Transport, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China

Transportation Science, 2023, vol. 57, issue 3, 647-660

Abstract: Car use restrictions have been adopted in some mega cities that experience rapid car ownership increase and worsening traffic congestion. Although easy to implement and considered fair, most implementations of this travel demand management policy do not offer travelers the flexibility to choose the days that they cannot use their cars. In this paper, we study a flexible car use restriction policy under which a private car cannot be driven on a certain day of a week, but the day can be chosen by its owner. Under this flexible policy, individuals face a dilemma between driving in congestion and traveling without a car, each incurring a cost of its own. The resulting equilibrium solutions under these two competing choices were derived, and a series of laboratory experiments were carried out to validate the theoretical results. The experimental results are found to be in agreement with the theoretical results. Moreover, our analysis shows that the flexible car use restriction policy reduces the average travel cost with a lesser increase in average driving cost when compared with the traditional car use restriction policy.

Keywords: flexible car use restriction policy; travel demand management; user equilibrium; laboratory experiments (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ortrsc:v:57:y:2023:i:3:p:647-660

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