Toll product preferences and implications for alternative payment options and going cashless

There has been a great deal of research on deriving estimates of the value of travel time savings (VTTS) as a way of converting travel time benefits of toll roads relative to free routes into monetary units, the major user benefit in the development of forecasts of traffic and hence revenue streams. By contrast there has been almost no consideration given to identifying the role that various tollroad products play in establishing preferences for toll routes over non-tolled routes. Increasingly tollroads give users the option to pay by cash at a toll booth, by electronic tolling or by a pre- or post-paid debit and credit account system involving vehicle identification. The efficiency gained by electronic tolling for both the users and the operator have resulted in moves in many jurisdictions to eliminate cash collection entirely (or not introduce it when introducing a new tolled road facility), and to introduce a range of pre- and post-payment options. This has been accompanied by a growing move to distance-based charging in some contexts which is more cumbersome to structure with a cash option. This paper investigates current and potential travellers’ preferences for a range of toll products and how much individual’s are willing to pay for very specific toll products. Data from a stated choice experiment is used in a mixed logit model to establish the role that toll products play in the context of offered times and costs of alternative routes, in choosing between alternative ways of paying for the use of tolled routes.

John M. RoseEmail:

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David A. Hensher   is Professor of Management, and Founding Director of the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies. David is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, Recipient of the 2006 Engineers Australia Transport Medal for lifelong contribution to transportation, member of Singapore Land Transport Authority International Advisory Panel (Chaired by Minister of Transport). David is on the editorial boards of 10 of the leading transport journals and Area Editor of Transport Reviews. David was appointed in 1999 by one of the worlds most prestigious academic publishing houses—Elsevier Science press as series and volume editor of a new handbook series “Handbooks in Transport”. Appointments over recent years include: a member of the executive committee that reviewed bus transport bids for the Olympic Games, the NSW Government’s Peer Review Committee for the Sydney Strategic Transport Plan, Peer reviewer for Transfund (NZ) of the New Zealand project evaluation program, Peer reviewer of the NZ Land Passenger Transport Procurement Strategy for Land Transport NZ, member of the executive committee of ATEC, a consortium promoting a freight rail system between Melbourne and Darwin; economic adviser to Gilbert+Tobin Lawyers on valuation methods in IP context; panel member of NSW Ministry of Transport benchmarking program; specialist toll road project adviser to Thiess. John M. Rose   is Director of the Industry Program and a Deputy Director at Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS). John’s research interests are in the areas of discrete choice modelling and efficient stated choice experiments. John has several articles published in the top Transportation and Logistics journals (including Transportation, Transportation Research A, B and E) and is a co-author of (with Professors David Hensher and William Greene) Applied Choice Analysis; A Primer, (2005) by Cambridge University Press. He is currently writing a book on generating efficient stated choice experimental designs (with Mike Bliemer, Delft).