CBO
Using Pricing to Reduce Traffic Congestion
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Preface
Congestion costs highway users billions of dollars every year. Although policymakers have adopted a variety of strategies for reducing or mitigating congestion, relatively little attention has been paid to policies to promote more efficient use of the highway system. One such policy is congestion pricing, under which drivers are charged a higher price for use of a highway at times or places with heavy traffic and a lower price in the opposite circumstances.
This study—prepared at the request of the Chairman of the House Committee on the Budget—explains how congestion pricing works, reviews the best available evidence on projects that make use of such pricing in order to assess the benefits and challenges of the approach, and discusses federal policy options for encouraging congestion pricing. In keeping with the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO’s) mandate to provide objective, impartial analysis, this study makes no recommendations.
Scott Dennis of CBO’s Microeconomic Studies Division wrote the study, with research assistance from Jacob Kuipers and under the supervision of Joseph Kile and David Moore. Kenneth Buckeye of the Minnesota Department of Transportation; Ross Crichton of the Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration; Patrick DeCorla-Souza of the Federal Highway Administration; David Lewis of HDR/HLB Decision Economics, a consulting firm with expertise in transportation; Mark Muriello of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey; Bruce Schaller of the New York City Department of Transportation; Kenneth Small of the University of California at Irvine; Michael Sprung of the Federal Highway Administration; Derek Toups of the San Diego Association of Governments; Stefan Trinder of Transport for London; Jack Wells of the Department of Transportation; and Clifford Winston of the Brookings Institution provided valuable comments—as did Robert Dennis, Sarah Puro, and Thomas Woodward, all of CBO. (The assistance of external reviewers implies no responsibility for the final product, which rests solely with CBO.)
John Skeen edited the study, and Christine Bogusz proofread it. Maureen Costantino designed the cover and prepared the report for publication. Linda Schimmel coordinated the print distribution, and Simone Thomas prepared the electronic version for CBO’s Web site.
Contents
Highway Congestion and Federal Policy
Policy Options for Congestion Pricing
Reduce Federal Barriers to Implementation
2-1. Congestion-Pricing Projects in the United States
1-2. Peak-Period Congestion in the National Highway System, 2002 and 2035
1-3. The Amount of Traffic Compared with the Stock of Roads
