A congestion pricing approach to reduce traffic jams in urban arterial networks

A novel approach is introduced to aid congestion toll management for a simple city network. Vickrey's single bottleneck model is effective for a single commuter's route; however even in simple road networks congestion in a certain zone will affect the flow values in the rest of the network. Using a step by step methodology to determine equilibrium flow values, it is possible to use the single bottleneck approach separately for all bottleneck queue formations with some simplifying assumptions. Average waiting time is used to evaluate the severity of a queue and is computed with simulation runs. An analytical derivation for the waiting time is also made and a paradoxical result is also highlighted. Keywords: Traffic jams, congestion pricing, discrete event simulation