By: Angela Jacobs and Carol A. Zimmerman
Congestion pricing, or value pricing, is a way of harnessing the power of the market to reduce wasted time associated with traffic congestion.
Pricing works by shifting less critical rush-hour highway travel to other transportation modes or to off-peak periods. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has embarked on six groundbreaking projects that use a combination of innovative transportation strategies—including congestion pricing—to manage congestion and multimodal highway and transit improvements to enhance livability and sustainability.
In December 2006, the U.S. DOT sponsored a Congestion Reduction Demonstration (CRD) Initiative soliciting cities to apply for the Urban Partnership Agreement (UPA) program, designed to support selected cities that proposed the most aggressive congestion-relief programs. In 2007, the Department selected six metropolitan areas to participate in the program: Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, Minnesota, San Francisco and Seattle—referred to as “Urban Partners.”
The Department awarded funds to use aggressively four strategies (referred to as the “4 T’s”) to relieve urban congestion: (1) Tolling (congestion pricing), (2) enhanced Transit services, (3) Telecommuting, which includes flex scheduling and other transportation-demand-management strategies, and (4) the deployment of advanced Technology. Each Urban Partner agreed to implement a comprehensive policy response to urban congestion that includes the 4 T’s. The strategies applied by the Urban Partners vary but in each case the projects represent innovative solutions that, in the long run, will lead to substantial reductions in urban congestion.
Currently, two projects are fully operational in Miami and Minnesota. Although the data continue to be collected, the results so far are promising. A national evaluation team was established to assess the effects of all of the congestion-reduction strategies. Performance measures related to the goals and objectives of each project will be used to determine the effectiveness of each strategy.
The 4 T’s
The accompanying table summarizes the 4T strategies used by the Urban Partners, which illustrates the similarities and differences in strategies being used by the six sites.
Tolling: Four out of the six UPA/CRD project sites feature the application of high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) to high-occupancy tolling (HOT) conversion of existing or new lanes. Two of the sites also increased occupancy requirements from HOV-2+ to HOV-3+. The S.R. 520 project in Washington State will represent the first application of full facility pricing on existing lanes in the U.S. In San Francisco, variable pricing in a city-wide parking-management project is the backbone of their UPA project.
Technology: All six project sites put in use innovative technology applications such as active-transportation-demand management, automated enforcement, dynamic message signs showing real-time transit and highway travel time, and parking-management systems.
Transit: Transit was a major component of every UPA project. A commitment to support transit operations from toll revenues and significant funding for transit buses, park-and-ride lots, real-time signs, transit-signal priority, transit customer information systems and other elements gave transit a major and very visible role in the process. Two major innovative transit applications were part of the Minn. project: the Driver Assist System Buses and the MARQ2 project–Dual Contra Flow Bus Lanes.
TDM/Telecommuting: Minnesota has the most aggressive program for this category. They have instituted a telecommuting plan that expanded upon the successful Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) program originated at Best Buy. Employers participating in the program agree to evaluate employees on results, in lieu of requiring physical presence at the worksite at specific times, and provide employees the flexibility to telecommute or shift their hours to avoid congested commutes. Approximately 75% of Best Buy’s 4,500 corporate office employees participate in ROWE.
Six for the fix
Two of the six project sites—Miami and Minnesota—are operating now and the impacts of their strategies are already being observed.
Miami: The Miami project is creating HOT lanes on I-95 from Fort Lauderdale to downtown Miami, and about half of the ultimate 21 miles are currently in operation. Miami was awarded $62 million through the UPA program to complete phase one of the project. Key features include increasing the HOV limit from HOV-2+ to HOV-3+, requiring registration, and expanding the 10-lane highway to 12 lanes by reducing the width of the existing lanes from 12 ft to 11 ft and using a portion of the shoulder. As part of transit improvements, an additional 500 extra parking spaces were provided at the Golden Glades Interchange. Three new transit routes were introduced. Twenty-three new articulated, 58-seat buses will be phased in over the next two years. Ramp signaling and Transit Signal Priority also are being phased in.
Lessons Learned and Results to Date:
The 95 Express Lanes (EL) have significantly improved travel speeds and reliability levels for vehicular traffic on the I-95 corridor, reduced congestion on the corridor, increased effective capacity and provided a useful demand-management tool. Customers, including transit riders, choosing to use the EL increased their travel speeds from 20 mph in the a.m. and p.m. peak periods to a monthly average of 64 mph and 56 mph, respectively.
Drivers travelling via the general-purpose lanes (GPL) also have experienced a significant peak-period increase in average travel speed since implementation of EL—from an average of approximately 15 mph (southbound) and 20 mph (northbound) to a monthly average of 51 mph and 41 mph, respectively. Based on a 2010 survey, 53% of new transit riders on the 95 Express Bus Service said the express lanes influenced their decision to use transit and 38% of new riders said they used to drive alone.
Minnesota: The Minneapolis/St. Paul project created 15 miles of continuously priced lanes on I-35W between downtown Minneapolis and the southern suburbs. Existing HOV lanes were converted to dynamically priced HOT lanes, existing HOT lanes were extended and narrow bus-only shoulder lanes were converted to wider Priced Dynamic Shoulder Lanes. Minneapolis/St. Paul was awarded $133.3 million for this project.
Lessons Learned and Results to Date:
Over the 19-month period from July 2009 to January 2011, 5,943 I-35W MnPASS toll accounts were activated, with 6,724 active transponders. Use of the HOT lanes increased from October 2009 to January 2011, especially after the opening of the HOT lanes in the Crosstown Common Section in November 2010. During October 2009, a combined total of 24,754 trips were recorded in the I-35W HOT lanes. During January 2011, use levels had increased to a combined total of 55,177 trips. The monthly revenue for January 2011 was $82,523, compared to $19,609 in October 2009. In May 2010, approximately 2,100 carpools, vanpools and buses were using the HOT lanes during the morning peak period.
New park-and-ride lots and new transit services have been implemented in the I-35W corridor. A total of 2,347 new parking spaces were added at five new lots and one expanded lot on I-35W. Use of the lots along I-35W South and Cedar Avenue increased by 204 vehicles from October 2009 to October 2010. The weekday average during the a.m. peak period, peak direction ridership on buses from the park-and-ride lots along I-35W North increased from 1,440 in May 2009 to 1,505 in May 2010. Ridership on buses operating from park-and-ride lots along I-35W South and Cedar Avenue increased from 4,387 in May 2009 to 4,579 in May 2010.
Seattle: The Seattle project will result in implementation of variable pricing on the S.R. 520 floating bridge that currently carries about 160,000 people per day between Seattle and its eastside suburbs. Seattle was awarded $138.7 million for this project. The variable tolls on the existing bridge are intended to help pay for the new bridge.
Lessons Learned and Results to Date:
Three key lessons learned while working toward project implementation have been the following: Tolling an existing facility is challenging; public acceptance is critical; and support must be built early in the process. This project is scheduled to open in April 2011.
San Francisco: The San Francisco Partners received $87 million to implement a large-scale downtown parking-pricing project that will use intelligent-parking-management technology and techniques—in particular demand-responsive pricing and real-time data about where parking is available—to manage demand for a portion of the on-street and off-street parking supply. The new system will consist of approximately 6,000 metered on-street parking spaces (about one-quarter of the city’s total supply) and 12,250 parking spaces in 14 city-operated garages and one lot.
Lessons Learned and Results to Date:
Two key lessons learned while working toward project implementation have been the following: Interagency coordination is important; and outreach and education regarding parking management also is critical. This project is scheduled to begin price changes in Spring 2011.
Atlanta: The Georgia Department of Transportation received approximately $110 million from the CRD program to implement the first phase of a HOT-lane network on a 20-mile segment of I-85 northwest of Atlanta. The HOV designation was increased from HOV-2+ to HOV-3+. Transit improvements include two new park-and-ride lots and six new commuter coaches to provide commuting options.
Lessons learned and results to date:
Three key lessons learned while working toward project implementation have been the following: the benefits of utilizing a multistage procurement process; the role of customer-driven marketing; and the importance of coordinating enforcement with law enforcement agencies. The project is scheduled to open in August 2011.
Los Angeles: The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority received approximately $213 million in CRD funding. The project will convert existing HOV lanes to dynamically priced HOT lanes on I-10 and I-110. Transit operations include 57 alternative-fuel buses and services will include 100 new vanpools along with implementation of an intelligent-parking-management system by the city of Los Angeles.
Lessons learned and results to date:
Two key lessons learned while working toward project implementation have been the following: addressing equity issues early in the process; and the importance of corridor-selection process. The I-110 will be in revenue operation by Fall 2012 and the I-10 will be in revenue operation by February 2013.
The Urban Partners in Seattle, San Francisco and Atlanta will soon initiate full operation of their projects. Evaluation of the projects in operation will continue. In addition, the Volpe National Transportation Systems Research Center—part of the Research and Innovative Transportation Administration at U.S. DOT—will be conducting an in-depth travel behavior study of the Seattle and Atlanta sites to obtain valuable information on traveler response to the impact of introducing these innovative congestion-reduction measures.
About The Author: Jacobs is with the FHWA. Zimmerman is with Battelle.
