Information Provision, Flat and Fine Congestion Tolling and the Efficiency of Road Usage

Abstract This paper studies the relative efficiency of, and the interaction between, various information and pricing instruments for the regulation of stochastic road traffic congestion. Five regulatory regimes are considered: no tolling/imperfect information, no tolling/perfect information, non-fluctuating (‘flat’) tolling/imperfect information, flat tolling/perfect information, and fluctuating (‘fine’) tolling, implying perfect information. A simulation model is used to investigate the influence of some key parameters on the relative efficiency of the various regulatory regimes.