The Network-Wide Effects of Congestion Pricing: Evidence from New York City / Cody Cook, Aboudy Kreidieh, Shoshana Vasserman, Hunt Allcott, Neha Arora, Andrew Tomkins, Eray Turkel, Freek van Sambeek.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cook, Cody.

Contributor:

Kreidieh, Aboudy.

Vasserman, Shoshana.

Allcott, Hunt.

Arora, Neha.

Tomkins, Andrew.

Turkel, Eray.

van Sambeek, Freek.

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w33584.

NBER working paper series no. w33584

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2025.

Summary:

Congestion pricing programs toll only a subset of roads and times, with theoretically ambiguous spillovers. We study New York City's cordon-based congestion pricing using granular data from Google Maps and a generalized synthetic control design. The toll raised cordon-area speeds by 11%, with little effect on air quality, consumer spending, or foot traffic. Speeds also rose outside the cordon, especially on roads frequently traversed by cordon-bound drivers, making many unpriced trips faster. The magnitudes reflect steep congestion functions, where small volume reductions yield large speed gains. Because unpriced trips vastly outnumber priced ones, their small per-trip gains dominate aggregate driver welfare.

Notes:

March 2025.

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