Examining the delay and environmental impacts of toll plaza characteristics

The paper outlines those attributes of toll plazas which have a bearing on their ultimate performance and describes to what extent each of these can be simulated. The manner in which the service time distributions for different types of lanes can be simulated is presented, as is the extent to which various factors related to the toll booth demand can be incorporated. Subsequently, a number of sample analyses are performed to illustrate how well the modeled results track with corresponding analytical solutions, and to illustrate the various ways in which ATC (automatic toll collection) can yield potential system benefits. The latter estimation of travel time, delay, fuel consumption and emission estimates within a context of time-waiting demands, toll rates and diversions, is critical to any comprehensive analysis of system-wide impacts of toll facilities.