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Value Pricing Pilot Program: Lessons Learned

6.0 Appendix B: VPPP Case Study Project Summaries

Introduction

The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) has commissioned a Lessons Learned Report summarizing findings to date from Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA) Value Pricing Pilot Program projects. The report is intended to assist program managers within the USDOT in continuing support and oversight of value pricing projects within the United States. The report is also designed to assist state and local decision-makers, value pricing practitioners, and transportation planners in developing pricing programs to reduce congestion on the nation’s roadways. Finally, the report will provide the basis for a biennial report to the United States Senate and House of Representatives on the status of the Value Pricing Pilot Program. “Lessons” are defined as conclusions and implications supported by a synthesis of evidence in available, published evaluation reports associated with selected projects. While a single project may provide unique insights, only a confluence of findings across projects is likely to serve as the basis of robust lessons and conclusions.

Project Summary Tables

The Appendix includes summaries and key findings from selected congestion and value pricing pilot projects sponsored under the federal pricing pilot programs over the past 17 years. Twenty-four summaries are presented covering the primary project categories and encompassing the range of project types categorized in the FHWA Value Pricing Pilot Project Quarterly Reports. Some of the projects are feasibility or pre-implementation studies; others entail fully implemented and evaluated programs; others are experimental pricing trials. The Twenty-four summaries presented are a selection from all the pricing projects that have been funded or granted authority to toll through the program. These case studies were selected for a variety of reasons, including: variety of project type; depth and breadth of available evaluation material; range of relevant project experiences and outcomes; range of success or failure along key implementation and outcome variables, and; variation in location across the U.S. The twenty-four case studies presented here are organized under the appropriate FHWA project categories and do not appear in any particular order.

Each project summary is presented according to the matrix described below:

Pricing Project Category

Name and location of project

Operations

Details of program or study, including:

  • Description of participating agencies, pricing mechanisms, enforcement, operational details, project management, advisory committee presence.
  • Phasing of project or operational changes, e.g. development into managed lane, revised fees, variable introductions, and technology.

Cost, Finance, and Revenue

Reports any financial details included in projects, including:

  • VPPP grant monies awarded to project.
  • Cost and revenue information, and when available, breakdown by operations, equipment, enforcement, etc.
  • Relevant legislation pertaining to surplus revenue distribution, designated support of alternative modes, earmarks, etc.

Policy and Institutional

Indicates key institutional and legislative aspects of projects, including:

  • Enabling policies and legislation with key provisions, e.g., free flow in HOT lane.
  • Operational requirements for public involvement, transparency, profit distribution, environmental justice, reporting, sunset, etc.

Outreach and Acceptance

Outlines the extent of public engagement efforts and reports results, including:

  • Formation of public processes, e.g., key actor or champion roles, workshops, surveys, hearings, focus groups, etc.
  • Ongoing efforts, e.g., newsletters, hot line media or customer relations.
  • Public opinion or media reactions, e.g., hearings,  customer service tracking, and any program changes resulting.

Technology

Introduces types of, and experiences with, technology in projects, including:

  • Pricing system, e.g., transponders, readers, driver signs, dynamic vs. other.
  • Operational performance, accuracy, failures, functioning MOEs.

Equity and Environmental

Examines impacts, costs, and benefits of study or project, including:

  • Emissions impacts from traffic or user surveys.
  • Low-income group impacts from surveys, benefit-cost or economic studies.
  • Business, land use, or other interest group impacts, per evaluation.

Impacts

Reports quantitative and qualitative findings of study or project, including:

  • Traffic (volumes, VMT, delay, LOS, speed, general purpose lanes, surface streets, diversion, etc.)
  • Mode share (HOV, transit, PAR impacts.)
  • Violations (SOV, HOV citations, observation results.)
  • Users perceptions (travel time, on time arrival, safety) and affected party perceptions (e.g., business, low income.)

Evaluation

Methodology, limitations and strengths of evaluation completed.

  • Evaluation framework, e.g., traffic studies, user panels, business, land use, air quality, equity assessments, acceptance, or phases over time.
  • Evaluation manager, i.e., agency, independent contractor, or other.
  • Evaluation particulars including use of controls, survey sample sizes, response rates, means of evaluating difficult impacts, e.g., businesses.

The project summaries are organized under six broad pricing concept categories:

  • HOT Lane Conversions With Pricing
  • Variable Pricing of New Express Lanes
  • Variable Pricing on Existing Toll Facilities
  • Regionwide Variable Pricing Initiatives
  • Making Driver Costs Variable
  • Other Pricing Projects