Tradable mobility permits in roadway capacity allocation: Review and appraisal

The paper presents a comprehensive review on a variety of tradable mobility permits (TMP) schemes that are proposed as an innovative way of allocating roadway capacity. The study develops a comparative analysis and a qualitative evaluation to identify the similarities and variations among various TMP schemes. The paper summarizes both the strength and the weakness of different TMP schemes with respect to congestion reduction, market mechanism, and equity issues. A comparison between three typical TMP schemes and congestion pricing (CP) yields the following main conclusions: (i) there is no general superiority between the TMP schemes and the CP; (ii) various TMP schemes are unlikely to be combined into a general one, and should be separately designed for the particular objective and application condition; and (iii) different TMP schemes have different parts to be emphasized in the system design. The paper points out the implications for designs of pragmatic TMP schemes and the future research.