中文摘要
拥堵定价政策备受争议, 批评者常认为收费成本超过了拥堵缓解带来的收益。我们从理论上表明, 福利收益取决于两种力量: 驾驶员异质性的程度——既体现在偏好上, 也体现在对高需求道路和高峰时段的暴露程度上——以及收入再循环的程度。我们利用一项大规模实验的数据量化这两种力量的影响, 该实验在两年间追踪了近 10,000 名驾驶员在有无基于使用的拥堵定价激励情况下的驾驶行为。借助一个包含异质性驾驶员与精细路网的时变交通均衡模型, 我们表明, 采用该实验收费方案的拥堵定价政策所带来的福利提升, 相当于为每条高速公路增加一条新车道, 且能筹集到足以完全补偿受损者的收入。此外, 驾驶员异质性的程度意味着, 最优定价只需动用收费收入的一小部分即可改善净福利。
Abstract
Congestion pricing policies are widely debated and critics often argue that toll costs outweigh congestion relief. We show theoretically that welfare gains depend on two forces: the extent of driver heterogeneity—both in preferences and in exposure to highly demanded roads and times of day—and the extent of revenue recycling. We quantify the impact of both forces using data from a large-scale experiment that tracked driving behavior with and without usage-based congestion pricing incentives for nearly 10,000 drivers over two years. Using a model of time-varying traffic equilibrium with heterogeneous drivers and a granular road network, we show that a congestion pricing policy using the experiment's price schedule would raise welfare by as much as adding a new lane to every highway and would raise enough revenue to fully compensate losers. Moreover, the extent of driver heterogeneity entails that optimal prices can improve net welfare with only a small fraction of toll revenue.