Study On Prediction Methods Of Congestion Pricing’s Impact On Urban Traffic

In China, congestion charging is gradually proposed to the agenda as a new traffic demand management policy in urban traffic management system, and the related problems following to which such as fairness, toll rate, technologies used to charge fees must be resolved. At present, researches are concentrated on the study of fees optimization models and technical issues on how to implement congestion charging both at home and abroad, but less on the study of current traffic impact evaluation due to the policy. As the volume of automobile ownership largely grows in cities, urban traffic congestion will become more serious. At the same time, urban traffic in China is different and the development level, especially of the public traffic, falls behind to that of cities which have successfully carried out the policy, and for this reason, the result of congestion charging policy in China will be negatively affected to some extent. Therefore, this paper study on the prediction method of congestion charging policy’s influence on urban traffic by using a quantitative analysis method for the purpose of more accurately estimating the effect before the implementation of the policy.In the paper, the impact of congestion charging on the overall level of urban traffic, travel structure, parking demand as well as path flow are discussed with the consideration of the development experience at home and abroad. First, main aspect of congestion pricing program implementation is studied. Then, a summary of policy’s traffic impact prediction index system, influencing factors and research ideas is presented by learning from foreign countries’cases.For the theory and methodology of congestion charging traffic impact evaluation, the discussion of policy’s impact on overall level of urban traffic is from the point view of traffic economic. The prediction of traffic transfer volume between different modes of transport after implementing the policy is done on the base of traffic survey through the application of Mixed Logit Model, which is a kind of disaggregate model, and it is proved to be feasible by using the example analysis. Generalized cost model and road saturation ratio is adopted to predict road network flow distribution. The model which predicts congestion charging policy’s impact on parking is aslo proposed. Vague in-depth analysis is adopted to analyze and evaluate the effects of congestion charging comprehensively. Finally, Beijing’s congestion charging policy’s impact is concretely analyzed and come to a conclusion whether the policy is applicable at the present stage and the traffic after the policy’s implementation, for which100collected samples are statistically analyzed and then calculated in models by taking psychological factors’restrictions on the existing public traffic into consideration. This paper has made an important complement to the existing congestion charging theory and can provide suggestions for traffic management in reality.