Implications of different road pricing schemes in urban areas: a case study for Budapest

Road pricing is an efficient instrument to regulate use of roads. In Budapest, Hungary, only cordon pricing has been investigated in detail. This paper reports on a study of the implications of applying different road pricing schemes in the city using a macroscopic traffic model. Firstly, the functional relationship between pricing schemes and road transport demand was investigated. Secondly, the implications of applying road pricing schemes on travel demand, travel time, delay time, average speed and carbon dioxide emissions of road users inside and outside of the pricing area, as well as revenues generated by applying the schemes, were studied. The results revealed that a time-based system showed the best performance inside the pricing area. However, it generated heavy congestion on non-priced roads bordering the pricing area, which would increase travel times, delay times and carbon dioxide emissions and would decrease average travel speeds on the entire network. The cordon-based system was the least effective pricing system for most of the studied parameters, while the distance-based system showed good performance both inside and outside the pricing area. Regarding the revenues generated, variable-toll systems (time-based and distance-based systems) showed the potential to generate higher revenues than the fixed-toll system (cordon-based system).