Optimizing Road Capacity and Type

Kenneth Small () and Chen Feng Ng

No 121309, Working Papers from University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics

Abstract: We extend the traditional road investment model, with its focus on capacity and congestion as measures of capital and its utilization, to include free-flow speed as another dimension of capital. This has practical importance because one can view free-flow speed as a continuous proxy for road type (e.g. freeway, arterial, urban street). We derive conditions for optimal investment in capacity and free-flow speed, and analyze the optimal balance between the two. We then estimate cost functions for capital and user costs and apply the resulting model using parameters representing large US urban areas. We show that providing high free-flow speed may be quite expensive, and there is sometimes a tradeoff between it and capacity. We find suggestive evidence that representative freeways in most large urban areas provide too high a free-flow speed relative to capacity, thus making the case for reexamination of typical design practice.

Keywords: Capacity; Free-flow speed; Highway design; Optimal highway investment; Congestion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L91 R42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 51 pages
Date: 2013-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-tre and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Journal Article: Optimizing road capacity and type (2014)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:irv:wpaper:121309

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