University of California Institute of Transportation Studies

Transportation pricing policies aim to manage vehicular demand for parking, dense urban areas, roadways, and highway lanes. Although pricing policies take various forms, most were designed in a world before the sharing economy and ride-sourcing companies. Hence, the efficacy of existing pricing policies in a world with shared mobility services requires further consideration. Moreover, future pricing policies designed to handle private vehicles and shared ride-sourcing vehicles must consider the behavior of both sets of travelers and vehicle fleets. This study develops a conceptual framework to support systems level analysis of pricing policies for a world with private and shared vehicle usage. It qualitatively analyzes the impact of shared vehicles on the effectiveness of various pricing policies, while also considering the role of vehicle-to-infrastructure technology. This conceptual framework will support future research that uses activity-based travel demand and dynamic network assignment models to evaluate congestion pricing policies in an era of shared mobility. Additionally, the study presents a detailed review of the literature related to transportation pricing together with a trend analysis on congestion pricing policies in Transportation Research Board annual meeting titles and abstracts.