A Model for the Benefits of Electronic Toll Collection System

Due to the degree of complexity related to measuring the advantage of establishing Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) systems, literature generally stops short of modeling an all-inclusive set of benefits of the system. In this research, a model that incorporates the impact on both the users and the society as a whole and evaluates the financial benefits over the lifespan of the ETC investment is developed. Most of the values for the parameters used for calculating the benefits are taken from Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and from similar studies conducted by transportation agencies, which is the setting that has motivated the current research. These parameters are national averages and not region specific. The model will serve as a decision making tool to determine the number of ETC lanes over the manual and automatic lanes. The model has been used for toll plazas with different number of lanes to study the financial value of the benefits due to the ETC deployment. It is also used to study the effect of the traffic flow on the total benefits and recommendation has been made with respect to the time for the ETC deployment