Evaluation of Impacts of Time-of-Day Pricing Initiative on Car and Truck Traffic: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The traffic impacts of the time-of-day pricing program initiated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) on March 25, 2001, are analyzed. The analyses are based on the traffic data routinely collected at all toll lanes by PANYNJ. Since terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center disrupted the transportation network and made it impossible to isolate and analyze user reaction to the PANYNJ toll prices, only the period before the events of September 11, 2001, was considered. The research has confirmed a statistically significant shift toward prepeaks, in both mornings (5 to 6 a.m.) and afternoons (3 to 4 p.m.), in car traffic percentage share after the time-of-day pricing. Also, weekday truck traffic percentage share showed a statistically significant shift to morning prepeak (5 to 6 a.m.) and afternoon postpeak hours (7 to 8 p.m.). However, weekend car and truck traffic percentage shares did not have statistically significant changes during peak shoulder hours (11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 8 to 9 p.m.). These findings indicated that PANYNJ time-of-day pricing initiative was successful in spreading weekday peak period traffic to the hours just before or after the peak toll rates are in effect, mainly for passenger cars. As observed from descriptive analysis of commercial surveys, however, even though PANYNJ time-of-day pricing gives truckers an incentive to shift their travel periods, it is not the only factor affecting the truckers’ travel pattern.