Go back to Carlos Daganzo's Publications PagePart I of this research (A pareto optimum...) showed that a combination of rationing and pricing can improve the welfare of all the motorists wishing to pass through a bottleneck, even if the collected revenues are not returned to the population. The scheme banned a given number of motorists from the bottleneck each day, but allowed anyone to avoid the ban by paying a toll.
This research considers a less restricting rationing scheme
where a restriction would mean that passage through the
bottleneck is banned after a certain time of the day (e.g. the
start of the rush hour) but not before that time.
Conservatively, we assume that the ban remains in force even
after the conclusion of the rush, although in practice one would
like to terminate it earlier. (This assumption limits the
benefits that can be gained from control as it discourages
people from delaying their arrival in order to avoid the queue.)
Despite this inefficiency, the scheme is shown to have the
potential for reducing everyone's travel time over a number of
days. Later research will relax the end-of-the-ban assumption.
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