A Pareto Improving Strategy for the TimeDependent Morning Commute Problem

CARLOS F. DAGANZO and REINALDO C. GARCIA

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-1720

This research shows that certain time-dependent congestion reduction schemes involving tolls have the potential for benefiting every driver even if the collected revenues are not returned to the payers. The paper considers a population of commuters who use a single bottleneck during the morning rush hour and try to arrive at work on time. It is assumed that the number of commuters is fixed (independent of the control strategy) and that each commuter wishes to pass through the bottleneck at a given time, which may differ across commuters. Commuters are otherwise identical. Each of them chooses his/her arrival time at the bottleneck so as to minimize a linear combination of monetary cost (tolls), queuing time, and deviation from the desired passage time. A time-dependent toll is applied during a time window, but some commuters are exempted from paying it. Every day, each commuter is classified as either free or paying. The classification method is such that, in the long-run, the fraction of days, f, that a commuter is free is the same for all commuters, and the fraction of free commuters is f every day. Free commuters are allowed to use the bottleneck without paying the toll, whereas paying commuters can avoid the toll only if they pass through the bottleneck outside the time window. It is shown that, if commuters wish to pass through the bottleneck close together, then the toll, the window, and the fraction of free commuters can be chosen in a way that will benefit everyone by inducing an equilibrium where the peak is smoothed out in a particular way. Up to 25% of the total user cost can be eliminated in this way.

his paper proposes and evaluates an unconventional pricing scheme for the time-dependent morning commute problem that has the potential for being Pareto improving. Interest in congestion pricing is currently high because both the public and government officials are increasingly aware of the high costs of urban congestion and the limitations of more conventional congestion reduction remedies. Even though congestion cost estimates must be treated with caution, recent analyses leave no doubt that congestion is a pressing problem: the annual cost of delays in the 10 most snarled city and suburban road systems in the United States has been estimated to be on the order of $34 billion (SCHRANK and LOMAX, 1997). The paper is motivated by the recognition that conventional congestion pricing strategies involve transfer payments that hurt (or at least do not benefit) the majority of users, and the belief that reducing these inequities can go a long way toward eliminating the publics reluctance to accept tolls.
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Some of these issues have already been explored in the context of a steady-state (static) system. It has been suggested (DAGANZO, 1995) that, if certain procedures were implemented (citywide) in a perennially congested city, then a Pareto improvement could be achieved. The assumptions about user behavior made in this reference were rather general, but the traffic model (being steady state) ruled out surgical application of the procedure to hot spots that are only congested part of the day. In view of this, some modifications that would be appropriate for these cases are outlined in this paper. They will be illustrated below with the simplest possible hot spot scenario; i.e., the so-called morning commute problem with homogeneous drivers, introduced in VICKREY (1969) and later examined in HENDRICKSON, NAGIN, and PLANK (1983), SMITH (1984), DAGANZO (1985) and ARNOTT, DE PALMA, and LINDSEY (1990), among others. (A thorough understanding of this simple case is a prerequisite to the investigation
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of more realistic scenarios; e.g., with heterogeneous drivers, different vehicle types, and some cheating.) Section 1 summarizes the necessary background from these references. Section 2 describes the proposed strategy, and Section 3 examines the equilibrium state obtained as a result of its application, assuming that all the commuters wish to pass through the bottleneck at the same time. It is shown in this section that the proposed strategy, unlike pure pricing alone, can achieve some benefit even if the tolls are not returned to the population. Section 4 then shows that similar policies can also yield Pareto improving results for a population of commuters with different desired passage times. A policy exists that maximizes the benefit to every driver and where the benefits are distributed equally across drivers. On any given day, the policy can reduce the total queuing delay (congestion) by as much as 25% without changing the flow through the bottleneck. The paper ends with a discussion of implementation issues and possible generalizations.
1. BACKGROUND

earlier than t . Because all the times in this paper refer to the bottleneck, the words arrival and departure also refer to the bottleneck. This is consistent with queuing theory usage but opposite to the economic literature in which authors talk about departures from home (our arrivals) and arrivals at work (our departures). We assume that each commuter chooses an arrival time to the queue, a i , that minimizes a linear combination of money and the times spent in different states (in the queue and at the destination, either early or late), recognizing that the various states are not valued equally. This generalized cost can be expressed in any units we wish, provided that the results are only used to compare costs for a specific commuter before and after control. Thus, time in queue is chosen as our measurement scale for cost because this eliminates another parameter (the value of time in queue) from the formulation. The unpunctuality penalty for a commuter, i , that departs the bottleneck at time t is assumed to be P i t e w i t L t w i if t w i if t w i user departs early (1a) user departs late , (1b)

ASSUME THAT N users ( i 1, . . . , N ) wish to pass through a bottleneck with the following features: i) a time-independent capacity, , expressed in vehicles per unit time; ii) service on a first-in-first-out basis (FIFO discipline); and iii) an overall behavior that can be approximated with the standard fluid model of queuing theory; see, e.g., NEWELL (1982). Recall that, in the fluid approximation model i is treated as a continuous (real) variable, i [0, N ]. This convention is also adopted below. In addition, it will be assumed for simplicity of notation that time is measured in a system of units such that 1. Assume as well that the bottleneck is the main source of congestion for the user population such as it occurs with the Golden Gate Bridge in the San Francisco Bay Area. The user population is allowed to have different origins and destinations as long as the trip times between these locations and the bottleneck are fixed. This allows us to define for each user, i , an ideal time of passing through the bottleneck, w i , which would ensure that the user arrives at the final destination when desired. This information can be encapsulated graphically by means of a smooth function that returns w i for every i , w i T w ( i ). Assuming without loss of generality that the users have been numbered in order of increasing w so that T w is monotonic increasing, we can also define an inverse function W ( t ) that identifies the user number wishing to depart at t , i.e., the cumulative number of users with desired passage times

where e and L are the conversion rates for earliness and lateness into queuing time. These rates are assumed to be the same across commuters and to satisfy e 1 L . SMALL (1982) estimates L / e 3.9. Define an assignment as a set of arrival times to the bottleneck for all commuters: { a i }. Given { a i }, it is possible to determine the arrival position p i of every commuter and to construct monotonic curves for the cumulative number of users to have arrived and departed by time t , A ( t ), and D ( t ), using the rules of the bottleneck. Because the queue is FIFO, p i is also the departure position of user i . Therefore, curve A is obtained by plotting p i versus a i , i.e., p i A ( a i ). Curve D is the highest smooth curve with slope less than or equal to 1 that does not exceed A. Figure 1 displays two such curves on a diagram of vehicle count ( p ) versus time ( t ), together with a hypothetical W curve. Note that the inverse functions A ( t ) and D ( t ), denoted T A and T D , also follow from { a i }, and that T D ( p i ) is the departure time of user i , d i . An assignment is an equilibrium if curves A and D do not allow anyone to reduce their generalized cost ( C i ) by unilaterally changing arrival time/position, i.e., if for every i , p i minimizes the (generalized) user cost function C i p P i T D p T D p T A p . (2)

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tion, then the generalized cost is the same for everybody, and C i z for all i . The geometry of the figure also reveals that the numbers of commuters departing early and late, x and y , are x NL / e L and y Ne / e L . (3c) (3b)

Fig. 1. Cumulative arrival, departure, and desired deadline curves for an equilibrium.

In other words, p i arg min C i ( p ). If no tolls are imposed, then, for suitable convex penalty functions of which Eq. 1 is an example, an equilibrium exists (Smith, 1984) and is unique (Daganzo, 1985). At such an equilibrium, commuters arrive in the desired order of departure, first-deadline-first-in (FDFI), i.e., p i i . The references show that, in an equilibrium, the three curves A, D, and W coincide when there is no queue and that the W curve must divide the queuing (linear) portion of the D curve into two parts with vertical (or horizontal) dimensions, x and y , such that: x / y L / e ; see Figure 1. For penalty functions of the form of Eq. 1, the equilibrium arrival curve is piecewise linear as shown in Figure 1. The equilibrium A curve takes off from the low end of the queued segment of curve D, point F of the figure, increases at rate a i 1/(1 e ) until reaching ordinate p x , and then at rate a ii 1/(1 L ). With these slopes, curve A always intersects curve D at the upper point where D and W meet again, as shown in the figure. To see that such a set of curves is an FDFI equilibrium, one needs to verify that Eq. 2 reaches a minimum when p i . This can be seen from the figure by examining the rates at which the queuing delay and the unpunctuality penalty change as the arrival position p is moved away from i , for any fixed ( i , w i ) pair. In this equilibrium, the user departing in position p x (where curves D and W intersect) experiences zero unpunctuality but maximum queuing time, i.e., C x z , where z NeL / e L , (3a)

It has been pointed out (NEWELL, 1987) that, if a time-dependent toll equivalent to the queuing delay is collected at the bottleneck, then an equilibrium would develop where people continue to make the same trips and pass the bottleneck at the same time. Vehicles would arrive just in time for their scheduled departure. Queuing delay would have been eliminated, but commuters would pay an equivalent monetary penalty. As a result, they would experience no gain, ignoring of course any indirect benefits they may receive from the collected revenues. Thus, an incentive exists for finding modified strategies that would generate Pareto improvements. Sections 2 and 3 show that, in an idealized scenario where all the commuters are identical, there is a pricing strategy that benefits all the commuters even if the indirect benefits of the revenues are ignored. Section 2 presents the strategy and Section 3 its results.
2. A POSSIBLE STRATEGY

as per the geometry of Figure 1. If the commuters share the same deadline, so that W is a step func-

THE IDEA IS TO encourage turn-taking by tolling the population selectively and equitably. To do this, one introduces an arbitrary number of toll classes, k , to which the population is assigned. The assignment method is such that, in the long-run, the fraction of days f k that a commuter spends in class k is the same for all commuters, and the fraction of commuters in class k is f k every day. It is theoretically possible to eliminate queues with this approach by defining one class for each minute (or an otherwise short time slice) of the rush hour; setting f k equal to the fraction of the population that passes the bottleneck in slice k of the untolled equilibrium; and introducing a class-specific toll that is zero for departures within the slice and very high outside. This scheme should have the same effect as issuing appointments to use the bottleneck. Indeed, consideration shows that, under these conditions, an arrival pattern where everyone arrives within their appointed time slice is an equilibrium in which there is no queuing and no tolls are paid. Note that this equilibrium would be Pareto improving even if the value of time varied across the

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population. Although the pricing scheme just described is obviously impractical because it is too complex and authoritarian, its theoretical effectiveness suggests that Pareto improvements may be achieved with simpler versions of the scheme. The simplest possible approach would include only two customer classes and a single time window [ W B , W E ]. A special case in which W E has already been examined (DAGANZO, 1992). This reference showed that Pareto improvements were possible with a toll that varied continuously with time. Continuity is desirable as a practical matter to ensure that small deviations from a commuters plans due to the vagaries of traffic only result in small variations in the tollrecall that the toll is calculated based on the time when the vehicle passes the bottleneck. The sections below extend the results in Daganzo (1992) by allowing W E to be finite. As in that reference, it is assumed that one of the classes, labeled free and including a fraction f of the population, is not tolled. The other class, labeled paying and including the remaining fraction (1 f ), experiences a continuous toll. Allowing one of the classes to go untolled makes it more likely that the strategy will be Pareto improving in real-life situations with commuters that have widely different abilities to pay. The toll is assumed to be proportional to the time separation between the moment of bottleneck passage and the closest end of the time window. The proportionality constant, , is expressed in units of queuing time per unit of time separation and is assumed to be the same across drivers (homogenous population). That is, the toll penalty for a paying user departing the bottleneck inside the time window at time d is Toll Penalty min d W B , W E d for d W B , W E . Thus, the system manager can choose four free parameters: the toll rate, ; the time window, [ W B , W E ], and the fraction of free commuters, f . It will be shown in the next two sections that these 4 parameters can be chosen so as to achieve a Pareto improving equilibrium. We believe that the proposed strategy can be implemented with current technology. For example, each commuter could have a non-transferable electronic tag attached to his/her car that would be linked to its license plate. Ideally, the code on the electronic tag would be similar for cars registered to the same city block, and cars with similar codes would be assigned to the same population class so as

to share free days. This would discourage the trading of cars within families, neighbors, and other forms of arbitrage. Tolls could be collected electronically. Random checks and stiff fines could be applied to discourage cheating (e.g., tag tampering). Additional implementability issues are discussed in Daganzo (1995) and later in this paper. The results of the strategy are discussed next.
3. HOMOGENEOUS POPULATION WITH A SINGLE DESIRED DEADLINE

CONSIDER HERE THE case where all the commuters have the same desired deadline, i.e., where W ( t ) is a step function. It will be shown in this section that there is a combination of parameters that achieves an equilibrium, as shown by the A and D curves of Figure 2. For convenience of notation and without loss of generality, the origin of coordinates on this diagram has been placed at the point where the curves W and D intersect. Thus, our variable p now ranges from x to y . The equilibrium of Figure 2 is assumed to have the following properties: i. The departure curve is the same as the original, without the controls. ii. The arrival curve matches the original curve (dotted line, A( t ) old) at the beginning and end of the rush but exhibits three distinct queuing episodes and less delay overall. The middle episode is geometrically similar to the original (before control) but includes only Nf customers; the middle A curve is obtained by translating Aold to the right by (1 f ) z . iii. Relationship to time window: The maximum delay in the first and third queuing episodes is experienced by the users departing at the edges of the time window. iv. Segregation property: All free customers depart in the middle queuing episode and all paying customers in the first and third. (This is the only property that is not apparent from Figure 2.) Recall from the theory of Section 1 that the slopes of the outer sides of the first and last triangles and those of the middle triangle are a i 1/ 1 e 1 and a ii 1/ 1 L 1 for segments NM and DC . (4b) for segments FE and AD (4a)

It should be clear from property (ii) that the fN free customers would be in equilibrium in the middle queuing episode because the queuing pattern for

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Fig. 2. Equilibrium pattern of arrivals with the proposed strategy: commuters with the same desired deadline.

this episode is the same as one would have obtained with the theory of Section 1 for a population of size fN . We now show that for any f (0, 1) one can always find a toll rate and a time window [ W B , W E ] such that the paying commuters will be in an equilibrium by arriving in the first and third queuing episodes, thereby satisfying property (iv). To do this, we imagine that the middle queuing episode has been given, and then draw lines through points A and C with slopes a iii and a iv given by the formulae and constraints 0 a iii 1/ 1 e 1 for the line through point A and a iv 1/ 1 L 1 for the line through point C . (5b) (5a)

We see from Eq. 5b that this will be possible only if satisfies L L 1. (6)

Likewise, Eq. 5a implies that e but, insofar as L e , this condition is redundant with Eq. 6 and can be ignored. We now show how to choose the time window for any satisfying Eq. 6. With slopes constrained by inequalities 5, the two slanted lines through points A and C will intersect curve A( t ) old at two well-defined points, such as E and N of Figure 2. Horizontal lines drawn through these points will in turn intersect the D( t ) curve at two points, such as G and Q of Figure 2. We choose W B and W E as the abscissas of these two points; see Figure 2. To show that this geometric construction is a segregated equilibrium, it suffices to show that the (1 f ) N arrival positions spanned by lines FEA and CNM are equally attractive to the (1 f ) N paying users, and that these positions are preferable to those in the middle queuing episode. To see this, note that arrivals in FE and NM, which pay no tolls because they depart outside the time window, experience the same queuing delay and unpunctuality penalty as in the uncontrolled equilibrium. Therefore, their generalized cost for arriving in any of these positions is z . We now show

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or C). This is true because, in the middle queuing episode, non-monetary costs are perfectly balanced but tolls increase toward its middle. Therefore, the steps we introduced to choose , W B , and W E for any f identify a segregated equilibrium. Figure 3 shows how the generalized cost of both free and paying users varies with departure time for this equilibrium. Note that the two user costs on paying days and free days are User cost on paying days z User cost on free days fz . same as before (7a) less than before . (7b)

Fig. 3. Variation of the user cost including toll.

that this is also the cost experienced by the tollpaying arrivals in segments EA and CN. Because generalized cost varies continuously with position, it suffices to show that paying users would be indifferent to arrival positions within EA, and also within CN. Within EA, earliness decreases with position at rate e and the toll increases at rate . The ensuing cost increase is perfectly balanced by the decline in queuing time, which can be shown to decrease at rate e . This rate is simply the difference in the reciprocals of the slopes of the A( t ) and D( t ) curves, i.e., 1/ a iii 1 (1 e ) 1 e . Therefore, paying users are indifferent to all points within EA. The same logic reveals that paying users are also indifferent to all points within CN. Thus, all arrival points on FEA and CNM are equivalent for paying users. Paying users are in equilibrium by arriving on the FEA and CNM curves because arriving in the middle queuing episode (ADC) is less appealing to them than arriving at either one of its extreme points (A

That is, every user saves (1 f ) z units of queuing delay on free days. This is equal to the horizontal displacement of the middle portion of the A curve from the original equilibrium curve Aold. Therefore, the shaded area in Figure 2 represents the total savings achieved in any given day. Because users are free 100 f % of the days, the long run average saved per day per user (the normalized shaded area) is Cost savings per user f 1 f z . (8)

The savings are only a function of f and reach a maximum of 0.25 z for f 0.5. Figure 4 illustrates that savings would be small for both small and large f . Note that a strategy of pure pricing ( f 0) results in no benefit. Note as well that tolls are only collected at the beginning and end of the time window, e.g., from the customers departing along segments GA and CQ in Figure 2. We believe that these results can be extended, at least approximately, to general scenarios with het-

Fig. 4. Illustration of savings obtained with different values of f : ( a ) small, ( b ) large.

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Fig. 5. Equilibrium pattern of arrivals with the proposed strategy: commuters with different desired deadlines.

erogeneous population groups, e.g., to real situations where current and potential users of the bottleneck have different desired deadlines, different valuations of the generalized cost components, different travel alternatives, and where the demand is elastic. We are hopeful because, as is shown below, the results remain valid if users have different desired deadlines.
4. DIFFERENT DESIRED DEADLINES

and latest deadlines, w min T w ( x ) and w max T w ( y ), that satisfy the steepness condition w min x and w max y . (9)

We will see that any strategy of the form presented in Section 3 is Pareto improving for this problem if, as shown in the figure, the proportion of free users f is large enough to satisfy w min fx and w max fy . (10b) (10a)

IT IS ASSUMED here that the desired deadline curve W increases in an S-shape form as suggested in Smith (1984), e.g., its derivative may increase to a maximum value greater than 1, remain there for a while, and finally decline from that level. It will be shown that, if all the commuters have deadlines in a narrow window of pre-specified width (i.e., W is moderately steep), then the solution identified in Section 3 continues to be an equilibrium if the customers in each class arrive in a FDFI order. This equilibrium is still Pareto improving, and Eq. 8 applies. The savings in this case continue to be equal for all users independent of their deadlines. Figure 5 shows an equilibrium (arrival and departure curves) that satisfies the conditions of Section 3. It also shows a hypothetical W curve with earliest

Geometrically, this means that the middle queuing episode should include the time interval from w min to w max, as shown in Figure 5. A non-trivial f satisfying Eq. 10 can always be found if Eq. 9 holds. That the equilibrium of Section 3 with a step W ( t ) is also an equilibrium now under class-specific FDFI follows from the following: a. The deadline curve of free commuters, W f ( t ) fW ( t ), would pass through the queue dissipation points A and C and would divide the departure curve into two chords of similar lengths as before. Thus, insofar as free users arrive in a FDFI order,

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they would be in equilibrium during the middle queuing episode, as per the rationale of Section 1. b. Because all the positions in the first queuing episode imply earliness (as per Eq. 10a; see Figure 5) these positions are equivalent for all commuters. The logic behind this statement was outlined in Section 3. By the same token, the positions in the third queuing episode also continue to be equivalent. Recall from Section 3 that a user with w i 0 is indifferent to the first and third queuing episodes. It follows then that paying commuters with negative deadlines will prefer the first episode and those with positive deadlines the third. Note as well that none would opt for the middle queuing episode. c. There are (1 f ) x paying commuters with negative deadlines who wish to arrive in the first queuing episode. Because this episode can accommodate precisely (1 f ) x users, the demand for positions is met. Because the same can be said for paying commuters with positive deadlines and the third episode, one sees that the suggested arrival pattern is an equilibrium. This establishes that every commuter would take the same action with a smooth deadline function as (s)he would have taken with a step function, and that this is true for both the controlled and uncontrolled scenarios. Therefore, the improvement introduced by the control cannot depend on the shape of W for any user. As a result, Eq. 8 still applies. The largest benefit is obtained by maximizing Eq. 8 subject to Eq. 10. Clearly, the maximum theoretical benefit (savings 0.25 z for f 0.5) can only be achieved if the tails of W are short ( w min 0.5 x and w max 0.5 y ). Otherwise, a smaller Pareto improvement can be obtained with a large f . Note that both the improvement for large f and the remaining control variables needed to achieve it are independent of W. This is fortunate because it means that knowledge of the deadline curve is not necessary to devise a strategy. Furthermore, it means that the proposed strategy can be introduced gradually, starting with a wide time window and a small percentage of restricted commuters. The resulting effect on the arrival curve can be monitored easily. With this diagnostic, one can then decide (with the publics consent) whether narrower windows and lower values of f should be pursued. If W is so shallow that Eq. 9 is violated, there may be free users who would like to depart in the extreme queuing episodes, and this may preclude perfect class segregation with class-specific FDFI. Whether this rules out perfect Pareto improvements is not known. In any case, and given the flexibility

users have with the proposed pricing approach, one would expect a more equitable distribution of gains and losses.
5. CONCLUSIONS

AS EXPLAINED previously, the proposed policy is attractive because it requires few data and can be implemented gradually. Of course, questions still remain. The following is a partial list that should be researched in the near future: 1. How should uninstrumented vehicles be treated, e.g., to prevent widespread cheating by drivers of instrumented vehicles? This would be important for the purposes of doing a small pilot study. 2. Should a few exemptions be given to everyone each year? How many? These exemptions have a different effect than changing f because commuters could choose the days in which they are exempted, e.g., due to emergency. 3. Would the equilibrium be stable? 4. Could Pareto improvements be obtained with some cheating? How much cheating is tolerable? 5. If the strategy induces new demand on free days and discourages some trips on paying days (elastic demand), would it still be Pareto improving? Could Pareto improvements be obtained while keeping the total number of trips constant? This question is currently being investigated. 6. Could Pareto improvements be obtained with a heterogeneous population of widely different commuters, e.g., with varying values of time, earliness and lateness, and where some of them may not have a deadline at all? This question is also being investigated. 7. Could the strategy be introduced gradually? And could the publics reaction to each policy modification be used to gauge the distribution of benefits at each step, as well as the desirability and nature of yet another small modification? 8. Could similar strategies be effective if other forms of travel such as alternative routes can be used to bypass the bottleneck? As explained in Daganzo (1995), this question is the same as item 5 if the alternative routes are not congested. 9. Could the methodology be extended to more general desired deadline curves, perhaps also including non-commuting drivers whose arrival times at the queue are given? If these questions have favorable answers and the most relevant of these can be communicated believably to the public, then adoption of pricing could be less dependent on the particular politics of a locality. This could perhaps mean that congestion could be

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reduced equitably in many bottlenecks around the world. Much more drastic strategies, such as rationing access to city centers by license plate, have already been applied in Caracas, Paris, Sa o Paulo, Athens, and other cities. The proposed policy can be viewed as a hybrid of pricing and rationing; so it is not very different from other things that are already being done. It should be more attractive than pure pricing or pure rationing because it gives people more options. Furthermore, it can be implemented surgically in specific locations, e.g., to increase the usage of underutilized car-pool lanes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE AUTHORS APPRECIATE the thorough efforts of four reviewers, whose comments have led to a much improved presentation. The research was supported by matching grant A-18220 from the University of California (Berkeley) Transportation Center.
REFERENCES

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one. Part II: Time-of-Day Restrictions that Encourage Earlier Arrivals, Working paper UCB-ITS-WP-92-8, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley, California, 1992. C. F. DAGANZO, A Pareto Optimum Congestion Reduction Scheme, Transp. Res. 29B, 139 154 (1995). C. HENDRICKSON, D. NAGIN, AND E. PLANK, Characteristics of Travel Time and Dynamic User Equilibrium for Travel-to-Work, in Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory, V. F. Hurdle, E. Hauer, and G. N. Stuart (eds.), 321347, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Canada, 1983. G. F. NEWELL, Applications of Queuing Theory, 2nd edition, Chapman Hall, London, 1982. G. F. NEWELL, The Morning Commute Problem for NonIdentical Travelers, Transp. Sci. 21, 74 88 (1987). D. L. SCHRANK AND T. J. LOMAX, Urban Roadway Congestion1982 to 1994, Volume 1: Annual Report, Research report 1131-9, Research Study Number 0-1131, Texas Transportation Institute, The Texas A&M University System, College Station, Texas, 1997. K. A. SMALL, The Scheduling of Consumer Activities: Work Trips, Am. Economic Rev. 72, 467 479 (1982). M. J. SMITH, The Existence of a Time-Dependent Distribution of Arrivals at a Single Bottleneck, Transp. Sci. 18, 385394 (1984). W. S. VICKREY, Congestion Theory and Transport Investment, Am. Economic Rev. 59, 251261 (1969).
(Received: April 1998; revisions received: March 1999; accepted: January 2000)