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Incentives for Drivers Who Avoid Traffic Jams
June 11, 2012
By JOHN MARKOFF
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/s...id-rush-hour-traffic.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
London, Singapore, Stockholm and a few other cities around the world battle heavy traffic with a “congestion charge,†a stiff fee for driving in crowded areas at peak hours. But drivers generally hate the idea, and efforts to impose it in this country have failed.
- Balaji Prabhakar, a professor of computer science at Stanford University, thinks he has a better way. A few years ago, trapped in an unending traffic jam in Bangalore, India, he reflected that there was more than one way to get drivers to change their behavior. Congestion charges are sticks; why not try a carrot? So this spring, with a $3 million research grant from the federal Department of Transportation, Stanford deployed a new system designed by Dr. Prabhakar’s group. Called Capri, for Congestion and Parking Relief Incentives.
- It allows people driving to the notoriously traffic-clogged campus to enter a daily lottery, with a chance to win up to an extra $50 in their paycheck, just by shifting their commute to off-peak times. The program has proved so popular that it is to be expanded soon to also cover parking. Amaya Odiaga, the director of business operations for Stanford’s physical education department, now drives to campus a few minutes earlier and says she has won just $15. But a co-worker got $50 — creating a competitive atmosphere that makes the program fun, Ms. Odiaga said. Better yet, Ms. Odiaga’s commute now takes as little as 7 minutes, down from 25 minutes at peak hours.
- Unlike congestion pricing, which is mandatory for everyone and usually requires legislation, “incentives can be started incrementally and are voluntary,†he said. Moreover, systems based on incentives can offer a huge advantage in simplicity. Until recently, the Stanford system required sensors around campus to detect signals from radio-frequency identification tags that participants carried in their cars. But the need for such an infrastructure has vanished now that so many drivers carry smartphones with GPS chips or other locaters. Administrators can use the network to set up a centralized Web-based service to manage any number of incentive campaigns.
- Samuel I. Schwartz, a transportation consultant and former New York City traffic commissioner, says a smartphone-based system is inevitable, though he predicts it will be used for congestion pricing as well as incentives. “Ultimately we will be charged, or money will be added to our accounts, by using the cloud infrastructure,†he said. “It’s so precise that you will be able to charge people for how much of Fifth Avenue they use and for how long a period. In Christmas season you may decide to charge them $10 to use Fifth Avenue for each block.â€
- Still, Charles Komanoff, a transportation expert who has designed a computer model of New York traffic, said he had reservations about such a system as an alternative to congestion pricing. “The incentives will be far too small,†he wrote in an e-mail, adding: “You really do need big disincentives (big sticks). Little carrots won’t do the job of changing drivers’ decisions†in New York or in San Francisco. Dr. Prabhakar said congestion pricing and his incentive system need not be mutually exclusive, and he noted that highway congestion was an example of “nonlinear†behavior, in which even a small reduction in vehicles at a given time — 10 percent or less — can have a big effect on traffic flow.
- Dr. Prabhakar’s experiments have offered different kinds of incentives, from airline-style reward points to lottery cash prizes. Now his system is poised to reach a much larger audience. Singapore is considering a system he and his students designed that offers lottery participation or a fare discount to public transit riders who travel at off-peak times. A trial run begun in January lowered rush-hour ridership by more than 10 percent. (Given a choice between discounts and lottery, riders overwhelmingly chose the lottery.) Bill Reinert, an advanced technology manager at Toyota, says incentives are no panacea. “Incentives the government gives you†to buy hybrid vehicles “are a good way not to establish markets,†he said. But he added: â€Do incentives work? Yes. I fly 300,000 miles a year on United.â€
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June 11, 2012
By JOHN MARKOFF
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/12/s...id-rush-hour-traffic.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
London, Singapore, Stockholm and a few other cities around the world battle heavy traffic with a “congestion charge,†a stiff fee for driving in crowded areas at peak hours. But drivers generally hate the idea, and efforts to impose it in this country have failed.
- Balaji Prabhakar, a professor of computer science at Stanford University, thinks he has a better way. A few years ago, trapped in an unending traffic jam in Bangalore, India, he reflected that there was more than one way to get drivers to change their behavior. Congestion charges are sticks; why not try a carrot? So this spring, with a $3 million research grant from the federal Department of Transportation, Stanford deployed a new system designed by Dr. Prabhakar’s group. Called Capri, for Congestion and Parking Relief Incentives.
- It allows people driving to the notoriously traffic-clogged campus to enter a daily lottery, with a chance to win up to an extra $50 in their paycheck, just by shifting their commute to off-peak times. The program has proved so popular that it is to be expanded soon to also cover parking. Amaya Odiaga, the director of business operations for Stanford’s physical education department, now drives to campus a few minutes earlier and says she has won just $15. But a co-worker got $50 — creating a competitive atmosphere that makes the program fun, Ms. Odiaga said. Better yet, Ms. Odiaga’s commute now takes as little as 7 minutes, down from 25 minutes at peak hours.
- Unlike congestion pricing, which is mandatory for everyone and usually requires legislation, “incentives can be started incrementally and are voluntary,†he said. Moreover, systems based on incentives can offer a huge advantage in simplicity. Until recently, the Stanford system required sensors around campus to detect signals from radio-frequency identification tags that participants carried in their cars. But the need for such an infrastructure has vanished now that so many drivers carry smartphones with GPS chips or other locaters. Administrators can use the network to set up a centralized Web-based service to manage any number of incentive campaigns.
- Samuel I. Schwartz, a transportation consultant and former New York City traffic commissioner, says a smartphone-based system is inevitable, though he predicts it will be used for congestion pricing as well as incentives. “Ultimately we will be charged, or money will be added to our accounts, by using the cloud infrastructure,†he said. “It’s so precise that you will be able to charge people for how much of Fifth Avenue they use and for how long a period. In Christmas season you may decide to charge them $10 to use Fifth Avenue for each block.â€
- Still, Charles Komanoff, a transportation expert who has designed a computer model of New York traffic, said he had reservations about such a system as an alternative to congestion pricing. “The incentives will be far too small,†he wrote in an e-mail, adding: “You really do need big disincentives (big sticks). Little carrots won’t do the job of changing drivers’ decisions†in New York or in San Francisco. Dr. Prabhakar said congestion pricing and his incentive system need not be mutually exclusive, and he noted that highway congestion was an example of “nonlinear†behavior, in which even a small reduction in vehicles at a given time — 10 percent or less — can have a big effect on traffic flow.
- Dr. Prabhakar’s experiments have offered different kinds of incentives, from airline-style reward points to lottery cash prizes. Now his system is poised to reach a much larger audience. Singapore is considering a system he and his students designed that offers lottery participation or a fare discount to public transit riders who travel at off-peak times. A trial run begun in January lowered rush-hour ridership by more than 10 percent. (Given a choice between discounts and lottery, riders overwhelmingly chose the lottery.) Bill Reinert, an advanced technology manager at Toyota, says incentives are no panacea. “Incentives the government gives you†to buy hybrid vehicles “are a good way not to establish markets,†he said. But he added: â€Do incentives work? Yes. I fly 300,000 miles a year on United.â€
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