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Step-tolling with price-sensitive demand: Why more steps in the toll make the consumer better off

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  • van den Berg, Vincent A.C.
Abstract
Most dynamic models of congestion pricing use fully time-variant tolls. However, in practice, tolls are uniform over the day, or at most have just a few steps. Such uniform and step tolls have received surprisingly little attention from the literature. Moreover, most models that do study them assume that demand is insensitive to the price. This seems an empirically questionable assumption that, as this paper finds, strongly affects the implications of step tolling for the consumer. In the bottleneck model, first-best tolling has no effect on the generalised price, and thus consumer surplus remains the same as without tolling. Conversely, under price-sensitive demand, step tolling increases the price, making the consumer worse off. The more steps the toll has, the closer it approximates the first-best toll, thereby increasing the welfare gain and making consumers better off. This indicates the importance for real-world tolls to have as many steps as possible: this not only raises welfare, but may also increase the political acceptability of the scheme by making consumers better off.

Suggested Citation

  • van den Berg, Vincent A.C., 2012. "Step-tolling with price-sensitive demand: Why more steps in the toll make the consumer better off," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1608-1622.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:46:y:2012:i:10:p:1608-1622
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2012.07.007
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Li, Zhi-Chun & Lam, William H.K. & Wong, S.C., 2017. "Step tolling in an activity-based bottleneck model," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 306-334.
    2. Silva, Hugo E. & Verhoef, Erik T. & van den Berg, Vincent A.C., 2014. "Airlines’ strategic interactions and airport pricing in a dynamic bottleneck model of congestion," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 13-27.
    3. van den Berg, Vincent A.C., 2014. "Coarse tolling with heterogeneous preferences," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-23.
    4. Odeck, James, 2017. "Government versus toll funding of road projects – A theoretical consideration with an ex-post evaluation of implemented toll projects," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 97-107.
    5. Deng, Yao & Sheng, Dian & Liu, Baoli, 2021. "Managing ship lock congestion in an inland waterway: A bottleneck model with a service time window," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 142-161.
    6. Knockaert, Jasper & Verhoef, Erik T. & Rouwendal, Jan, 2016. "Bottleneck congestion: Differentiating the coarse charge," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 59-73.
    7. Qiumin Liu & Vincent A.C. van den Berg & Erik T. Verhoef & Rui Jiang, 2024. "Pricing in the Stochastic Bottleneck Model with Price-Sensitive Demand," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 24-011/VIII, Tinbergen Institute, revised 22 Oct 2024.
    8. Fu, Xinying & van den Berg, Vincent A.C. & Verhoef, Erik T., 2018. "Private road supply in networks with heterogeneous users," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 430-443.
    9. Vincent van den Berg, "undated". "Self-financing roads under coarse tolling and heterogeneous preferences," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 22-045/VIII, Tinbergen Institute.
    10. Li, Zhi-Chun & Huang, Hai-Jun & Yang, Hai, 2020. "Fifty years of the bottleneck model: A bibliometric review and future research directions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 311-342.
    11. van den Berg, Vincent A.C., 2024. "Self-financing roads under coarse tolling and preference heterogeneity," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).

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