Analyses of pricing policies in a second-best solution context

Road pricing is currently considered one of the most powerful tools for managing transport demand in urban areas, especially to reduce traffic congestion and rebalance the modal split between private vehicles and mass-transit systems. User behaviour brings about a User Equilibrium (UE) condition, which has two main aspects: when making individual mobility choices, users select a travel alternative so that they maximise their own utility, which does not correspond to the overall utility; furthermore, users do not take account of external costs (such as air pollution, noise pollution and accidents). In this paper, we investigate the possibility of applying different pricing policies in order to affect user choices and so achieve an equilibrium flow pattern that leads to best utilisation of transportation systems. In particular, different approaches proposed in the literature are analysed within a multimodal framework for highlighting their common aspects and their main differences. In addition, some second-best solutions for applying pricing policies in real contexts are analysed and tested on a trial network.