Enhancement and evaluation of dynamic pricing strategies of managed toll lanes

High-occupancy/toll (HOT) lanes are facilities that combine pricing and vehicle eligibility to maintain superior traffic conditions in the HOT lanes while maximizing freeway's throughput. Ideally, tolls should vary in real time in response to traffic conditions in order to achieve the above objective. Since the first HOT lanes were implemented in 1995, the concept has become quite popular and widely accepted by many transportation authorities. Currently, there are approximately ten HOT lane facilities in operation in the United States. Some of them are single-segment facilities, that is, they have essentially one entrance and one exit, plus one tolling point, while others consist of multiple segments, that is, they have multiple ingress or egress points that are located distantly from each other and more than one tolling point. Depending on the toll structure implemented and where motorists enter or exit, they may pay different tolls.;This dissertation enhances and evaluates dynamic pricing algorithms for HOT lane facilities that consist of a single or multiple segments. First, a genetic algorithm optimization procedure to enhance pricing strategies that are already implemented in practice is developed. The procedure is demonstrated on 95 Express in South Florida, which is currently a single-segment facility. The experiments show that the procedure can yield improvements to the HOT lane operations. Then, the tolling practice for the multi-segment HOT lane facilities is outlined and recommendations for the future 95 Express, which will be expanded into a multi-segment facility, are made. This research also includes the enhancement of a microscopic simulation tool, CORSIM, to simulate HOT lane operations. Three main modeling components are developed, including three pricing strategies, a lane-choice module, and four toll structures for multi-segment HOT facilities. The enhanced software is demonstrated by simulating the current and future 95 Express. The result is that CORSIM enhancements are able to capture the primary characteristics of HOT lane operations and management.