Identification of Competing and Feeder Links and Routes in a Toll Road Context

Toll road projects have the potential to complement current project procurement practices while lessening the pressure on public finances. In this context, planning and valuation of a toll road project is closely related to analysis of the supporting network. In particular, the contribution of a project to adopted value measures is inherently dependent on the network topology and the influence of competing and feeder links and routes. Research on toll roads often ignores the aspect of evaluating the strategic position of a toll road project in a larger transportation network. This work contributes to filling this gap by proposing a methodology for identifying competing and feeder routes and links in the context of toll roads. Within a traffic assignment framework, the proposed methodology first simulates variations in link capacity and then studies the resulting correlation patterns to identify the impact of capacity variations on link volumes and most likely route flows. The methodology provides planning agencies with a tool for understanding the effects of network actions on competing routes and links versus actions on feeder routes and links, which is helpful in determining which network improvements will add the most value to existing and planned toll road projects.