Bottleneck congestion and residential location of heterogeneous commuters

Takayama, Yuki and Kuwahara, Masao (2016): Bottleneck congestion and residential location of heterogeneous commuters.

Abstract

This study examines effects of bottleneck congestion and an optimal time-varying congestion toll on the spatial structure of cities. To this end, we develop a model in which heterogeneous commuters choose departure times from home and residential locations in a monocentric city with a bottleneck located between a central downtown and an adjacent suburb. We then show three properties of our model by analyzing equilibrium with and without congestion tolling. First, commuters with a higher value of travel time choose to live closer to their workplace. Second, congestion tolling causes population to increase in the suburb and generates urban sprawl. Third, commuters with a higher (lower) value of travel time gain (lose) from imposing the congestion toll without toll-revenue redistribution. Our findings are opposite to the standard results of traditional location models, which consider static traffic flow congestion, and differ fundamentally from the results obtained by Arnott (1998), who considers homogeneous commuters.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: bottleneck congestion; residential location; congestion toll; urban sprawl
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D62 - Externalities; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R2 - Household Analysis > R21 - Housing Demand; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R4 - Transportation Economics > R41 - Transportation: Demand, Supply, and Congestion ; Travel Time ; Safety and Accidents ; Transportation Noise; R - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics > R4 - Transportation Economics > R48 - Government Pricing and Policy

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