This paper uses the Vickrey (1969) bottleneck model to empirically measure the social cost of traffic congestion in the US. We estimate extra travel time over and above hypothetical free-flow travel time, which we call “queuing time”, for each average commute trip. Our estimate implies that the annual social cost of congestion borne by all US commuters is 24 billion dollars. A higher level of congestion in a city may be attributed to a smaller per capita road stock in the city. This paper also empirically quantifies the optimal toll depending both on the commuter’s arrival time and residential location.
On average, California car commuters waste 4–5 minutes per morning commute due to congestion. Multiplied across all California car commuters, those ...
When and why drivers choose a priced or tolled facility over an untolled but congested parallel route is the subject of 3-year project funded by the F...
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United States Department of Transportation
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