Professor Baher Abdulhai’s job is to find ways to make the city’s transportation more efficient.

So, the engineering professor at the University of Toronto is in favour of anything that will increase the region’s stretched transportation infrastructure — including building a new highway.

But Abdulhai thinks there are only two means by which a new road would alleviate traffic congestion: making it a truck-only highway and congestion pricing.

“Congestion pricing has to follow the same pattern as congestion,” said Abdulhai, who heads the University of Toronto’s Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Centre, which uses the city’s transportation system as a laboratory for creating and testing high-tech solutions to gridlock. “Where are the more congested spots, and (at) what times, and this is where congestion pricing peaks,” he said.

The intent with congestion pricing is to push demand away from locations at times when roadways are heavily congested, he says. For example, the toll would charge drivers only at specific times of day, such as morning and afternoon rush hour, and be free the rest of the day. The funds garnered would then ideally be put into public transit projects, or road maintenance.

Abdulhai says congestion pricing does three things: It makes commuters consider carefully which mode they’ll use (driving vs. public transit); it encourages them to adjust their departure time to avoid paying a toll; it prompts adjustments to the route they’ll take.

The three impacts combined would have the effect of spreading out and easing congestion on busy routes, he said.

Singapore was among the first cities to try congestion pricing, in the 1970s, and since then London, Stockholm and Milan have followed. Studies have shown drivers tend to rearrange their travel schedules as a result, and better travel times ensue. Stockholm has consistently seen a 20 per cent reduction in traffic since the city implemented the pilot project in 2006.

But tolls are not popular with the public, and it is difficult to charge people for something they are used to getting for free, said Abdulhai. Moreover, critics of congestion pricing say that it is expensive to implement, intrusive, and places an unfair burden on the city’s poorest people.

Provincial Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca says the province is currently studying HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes, to see how effective they are in helping curb congestion.

Unlike congestion pricing, HOT lanes would allow a single-occupant vehicle to pay a toll for the privilege of using HOV lanes otherwise intended for cars carrying multiple passengers.

“We note that this research eliminates both capacity expansions and extensions to public transit as policies to combat

traffic congestion. On the other hand, our estimates of the demand for vehicle kilometres travelled (vkt) indicate that vkt is

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quite responsive to price. Together, these findings strengthen the case for congestion pricing as a policy response to traffic congestion.”

THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF ROAD CONGESTION: EVIDENCE FROM US CITIES,