Coarse tolling with heterogeneous preferences

This paper analyses optimal coarse tolling of congestion under heterogeneous preferences, and in particular its welfare and distributional effects. With coarse tolling, the toll equals a fixed value during the centre of the peak, whereas outside this period it is zero. This paper separately investigates three dimensions of heterogeneity. With the first, all values of time and schedule delay vary in fixed proportions, and this heterogeneity may stem from income differences. The second has differences in the flexibility of users in when to arrive. The third captures differences in willingness to arrive before or after the preferred arrival time. The paper uses three models of coarse tolling: the ‘Laih’, ‘ADL’ and ‘Braking’ model.