This paper evaluates the performance of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority’s recently-enhanced Nine-County Regional Pricing Model (RPM-9), which is being used to study congestion pricing alternatives in San Francisco as a part of the Mobility, Access, and Pricing Study. This study sought to evaluate comprehensive pricing and mobility-enhancing packages to improve access and offer more sustainable travel choices to and within San Francisco. The Study tested various pricing scenarios including cordon, area, and gateway designs; various toll levels; and a range of shoulder pricing/time of day profiles. Pricing scenarios were coupled with strategies for improving accessibility for all modes of travel to, from, and within San Francisco including, but not limited to, local and regional transit investments. RPM-9’s structure as a tour-based microsimulation model allowed several enhancements for this study that would not have been possible in a trip-based framework. These include the use of value-of-time distributions, rather than averages across groups; the feedback of mode and destination choice logsums to make auto ownership and tour generation sensitive to price; the explicit tracking of travelers who have paid area tolls; and enhanced peak spreading models. The disaggregate nature of RPM-9 facilitated summaries of key measures of effectiveness at various levels and types of aggregation including income level, residential location, and work location. These flexible summaries were critical to evaluating alternatives and answering questions about who was paying versus who was benefiting.
Time Series Foundation Models - current state and future directions
Evaluating Regional Pricing Strategies in San Francisco - Application of the SFCTA Activity-Based Regional Pricing Model
1. Evaluating Pricing Strategies:
Application of the San Francisco Regional Pricing Model
Jesse Koehler, Transportation Planner
TRB Annual Meeting 2010
SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
January 12, 2010
2. Overview
The Project
San Francisco’s Mobility, Access, and Pricing Study (MAPS)
The Tool
SFCTA Nine-County Regional Pricing Model (RPM-9 / CHAMP 4.0)
The Approach
The Upshot
Lessons learned for modeling and planning practice
3. The Setting – San Francisco Bay Area
9 counties
101 cities
7.2 million people
(2006)
Highest per capita
income of any metro
area in the US
7,000 sq mi (1,120
urbanized)
11. View from Treasure Island | Skyline today
Courtesy, SF Planning Department
12. View from Treasure Island | Approved Plans
Courtesy, SF Planning Department
13. View from Treasure Island | According to the Transbay Plan
Courtesy, SF Planning Department
14. MAPS – Context and Rationale
Countywide Transportation Plan
Forecast increasing motorization; declining transit performance
Called for further analysis of pricing to manage demand, raise funds
Regional and national trends and support for pricing policies
Local, regional, and state goals for:
Transportation system management
Economic competitiveness
Core-focused regional growth
Greenhouse gas reductions
15. MAPS – Key Questions
Is congestion pricing feasible and appropriate for San Francisco?
System performance and network improvements
Public acceptance and education
Program costs and economic impacts
What are the characteristics of a potential pricing program?
Geographic extent (zone boundary)
Charge type (area vs. cordon)
Pricing policy (fee level, time-of-day variance, discount policies)
Who pays?
How are individual travel behaviors forecast to change (or not)?
16. SF-CHAMP 3.0
Previous version of the SFCTA travel demand model
One of the first activity-based models used in practice
Major investment studies
Countywide planning
New Starts forecasting
Lacked key capabilities required by the MAPS team
Geographic extent
Pricing representation and sensitivity
17. The Tool: Regional Activity-Based Pricing Model
RPM-9, aka CHAMP 4.0
Model improvements:
Added feedback loops
Expanded geography
Explicit toll choice model
Accessibility (mode choice logsums)
Time-of-day choice (peak-spreading)
Values of time (stated preference survey)
More rigorous highway assignment; region-wide transit path building
Charge type (area vs. cordon) and discount logic
Computing power (“Can I have this tomorrow?”)
18. Approach to Model Development and Application
Develop the model in parallel with the planning study
Three-phase model development process
Deployable tools of increasing utility
Iterate in tandem
Single team of planning and modeling staff
Modelers invested in planning outcomes
Planners knowledgeable regarding capabilities and limits of model
Customized output summaries and processing tools
Run results available to planners in a consistent (but growing) format
Planners understanding of activity model encourages tough questions
Planners develop tools to further analyze/process model outputs
19. Disaggregate Results – Power and Peril
Facilitate key summaries at various levels/types of aggregation
Model directly informs multiple elements of feasibility analysis:
Toll policy: what is the preferred shape, size, and fee structure?
Revenue: transaction volume; impact of discounts
Equity: who pays? how are low-income and zero-car HHs affected?
Congestion mitigation: system performance (corridor, zone, city, region)
Reinvestment: what is the impact of network improvement packages?
Every model has its limits, and sound planning judgment always applies
Fully disaggregate results tempered by awareness of model’s capabilities
Planners must keep in mind that outputs are not “data” in the strict sense
20. Scenario Comparison
A good toll policy:
Obtains mobility objectives
Minimizes impacts
Many policies we examined had
major pros AND major cons and
were eliminated from consideration.
21. Potential Scenarios for SF
Congested Transit Segment
Congestedwith
Gateway
Downtown
Northeast
Double (travel speed below 8 mph)
Streets in SF
Parking Pricing
Cordon
Ring Congested Auto Segment
(highway speed below 30 mph
road speed below 10 mph)
23. Conclusion and Lessons Learned
Integrated team of planners and modelers integral to success
Sub-24 hour run-time crucial to extensive scenario testing approach
Understanding of model prompts planners to ask important questions
Residential location, income level, geographic variations, modal impacts
Flexible/tailored summaries are of enormous value to all on team
Planners always want more from models
These questions/requests help guide future model improvement efforts
24. Status of Congestion Pricing
Summer/Fall 2009 Finalize study analyses
Refined transportation improvements
Pricing policy, discount policy
Economic analysis
Coordination with related efforts
Study Timeline, Next Steps
Fourth round of public outreach (winter)
Board action (spring)
Potential next steps
Design & System Planning
Legislative Authority
Environmental Clearance
25. Thank you
Jesse Koehler, Transportation Planner
jesse.koehler@sfcta.org
Co-Authors:
Elizabeth Sall, Zabe Bent, Billy Charlton – SFCTA
Greg Erhardt – PB
SAN FRANCISCO COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
January 12, 2010