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Today
A real-life example with externalities Automobile congestion
We can use some economic tools to analyze the situation Equilibrium Market failure
Congestion
We will look at possible solutions to the problem Tolls on congested routes Building our way out of congestion HOV lanes Private highways and express lanes
Monopoly power? Public transit and city design
Recall information from previous activity Travel time on the highway is 20
minutes, no matter how many other cars travel on this route
The bridge is narrow, and so travel time is dependent on the number of other cars on the bridge
If 1 car is on the bridge, travel time is 10 minutes; 2 cars, 11 minutes; 3 cars, 12 minutes; etc.
Implementation of tolls
Each minute of time is worth a dollar for each person in your carpool In other words, for each additional
minute of travel time, you pay a $1 marginal cost due to your lost time
Each time you travel the bridge, each person in your carpool must pay a $5 toll
Route choice and externalities
Earlier this quarter, we used an activity to show that there is equilibrium on this route network w/o tolls: 11 carpools on the bridge
However, there are externalities involved whenever an additional carpool travels on the bridge
Why charging a toll is useful
W/o tolls, the bridge and highway have the same travel times in equilibrium Take away the bridge and nobody’s
travel time changes No social value to the bridge
With tolls, some people can have shorter travel times
Aren’t tolls costs too?
If bridge tolls go to government, these are just transfers of money
Toll revenue can offset tax money that has to be collected Remember that taxes have DWL,
except in a case like this where externalities are present
In this case, an optimal tax can reduce DWL
Equilibrium with tolls
Each minute is $1 in time costs (per person) Cost to travel on HW $20 Cost to travel on bridge time cost +
$5 What is equilibrium?
Each person on the bridge has $15 in time cost travel time of 15 minutes 6 carpools on the bridge
In the following analysis…
…we assume 1 person per car This is so that we can more simply
determine efficiency …we assume 20 cars that must
travel from A to B
Efficiency: Lowest total minutes for all drivers# on bridge Travel time
on bridgeTotal
minutes for bridge
travelers
Total minutes for
highway travelers
Total minutes for all drivers
1 10 10 380 390
2 11 22 360 382
3 12 36 340 376
4 13 52 320 372
5 14 70 300 370
6 15 90 280 370
7 16 112 260 372
8 17 136 240 376
9 18 162 220 382
10 19 190 200 390
11 20 220 180 400
What is efficient?5 or 6 on bridge# on bridge Travel time
on bridgeTotal
minutes for bridge
travelers
Total minutes for
highway travelers
Total minutes for all drivers
1 10 10 380 390
2 11 22 360 382
3 12 36 340 376
4 13 52 320 372
55 1414 7070 300300 370370
66 1515 9090 280280 370370
7 16 112 260 372
8 17 136 240 376
9 18 162 220 382
10 19 190 200 390
11 20 220 180 400
Applying our problem to real traffic problems Los
Angeles metro area
Some refer many of these freeways to be parking lots during rush hours
What are some potential ways to solve this problem?
Some people believe that we can build our way out of congestion
Let’s examine this problem in the context of our activity
Suppose our activity from week 1
No tolls Bridge travel time is 9 + T, where T represents the number of bridge travelers
Equilibrium: T = 11, 20 minute travel times for all
Increased capacity on bridge
New technology leads to bridge travel time at 9 + 0.733T
Equilibrium: T = 15, 20 minute travel times for all
What happens with increased bridge capacity?
Increased capacity leads more people to travel on the bridge
This is known as increasing bridge capacity creating its own demand
In the real world
Increasing freeway capacity creates its own demand Some people traveling during non-
rush hour periods will travel during rush hour after a freeway is expanded
Freeway expansion often costs billions of dollars to be effective during peak travel periods
HOV lanes
HOV lanes attempt to increase the number of people traveling on each lane (per hour)
These attempts have limited success Benefit of carpool: Decreased travel
time Cost of carpool: Coordination issues Problem: Most big cities on the west
coast are built “horizontally” sprawl
Private highways Look at a short video on LA traffic WARNING: This video is produced by
reason.tv, an organization that advertises “Free minds and free markets”
After the video I would like your thoughts about whether or
not you believe the suggestions in the video will help solve our commuting problems
We will discuss benefits and costs about private highways
Some references in the video
Highway 405: Often one of the busier freeways in the LA metro area
Highway 91 Express Lanes: Part success, part failure
Why could private highways be successful?
Uses prices to control congestion Private financing would prevent
tax money from having to be used More private highways would
decrease demand for free roads
Potential problems for private highways Monopoly power
Positive economic profits if not regulated Clauses against increasing capacity on
parallel routes Loss of space for expansion of “free”
lanes Contracts are often long (30-99 years) Private highways are often built in
places with low demand Tollways in Orange County
Possible solution: Public control over priced highways
This is what happened on the 91 Express Lanes in Orange County (eventually) Privately built
Monopoly problems Public buy-out of the privately-built
lanes With public control, more carpooling has
been encouraged
Benefits of public control of priced highways Gasoline taxes can be reduced in
congested areas to offset congestion pricing
Pricing increases efficiency, unlike taxes Non-commuting traffic has an economic
incentive to travel during times of little or no congestion
Trips with little economic value can be avoided Remember: With externalities, these trips
have Social MB < Social MC
Public transit and city design
People often hope that public transit is the solution However, many people hope that
“someone else” takes public transit Why? Slow, inconvenient, lack of privacy
Public transit can only be a long-term solution if it is faster and less costly than driving
Public transit and city design
City designs usually make public transit difficult for many people to use effectively Sprawl leads to people originating
travel in many different places Express buses are difficult to
implement Local buses are slow, used mostly by
people with low value of time
Public transit and city design
City planners can make public transit more desirable Increased population density near
public transit Areas with big workplace density,
especially near bus routes and rail lines
Designated bus lanes to make bus travel faster than driving solo
Public transit and city design
The problem with these potential solutions People in these cities want their
single family homes, low density neighborhoods
People value privacy highly This leads to the externality
problems of congestion