Investigating on the Effects of Congestion Pricing on Increasing Public Transit Share

Nowadays, traffic management policy in metropolitans is focused on increasing the share of public transit. The limitation of supply and slowing growth of road infrastructures have provided congestion for users who choose personal cars. Therefore, applying demand management policies which decrease the utility of personal cars and increase the tendency to public transit can be very important. Congestion pricing is a concept from market economics regarding the use of pricing mechanisms. One of the main questions is the effect of pricing strategy on mode choice behavior of users. This paper aims to investigate the effects of congestion pricing on choosing transit among people. Since direct observation of the pricing scenarios is impossible, stated preference approach has been used. Scenarios of pricing based on empirical design are provided and distributed among the respondents. The questionnaire included socioeconomic and trip characteristics of the respondents. Based on the pricing scenarios, three choices including "personal car", "public transit”, and "other modes” were included. More than 3500 questionnaire are gathered and coded. For modeling, the multinomial logit has been applied and calibrated for every choice. The results show that pricing can be used as an appropriate tool for demand management and encouraging users to choose public transit. Setting 30000 IRR1 entrance toll causes 13 percent change in modal shift from personal car to public transit. Finally, the model results at various costs have been discussed.