The impact of a toll reduction for truck traffic using SH 130

A time series analysis of the toll transaction data, along with the local price of diesel fuel, unemployment rate, GDP, and income levels, resulted in a toll-price elasticity of −0.43 for 5-axle vehicles (the vast majority of 5-plus axle vehicles). Thus, the drop in toll was successful in attracting additional trucks - but also resulted in decreased revenues from tolls. The majority (94%) of 5-axle vehicles paid using electronic toll collection (ETC), and the remainder paid manually (MLT). The toll-price elasticity for 5-axle vehicles paying by ETC was −0.39 while it was −1.49 for those paying by MLT. Thus MLT vehicles were much more price sensitive to the toll reduction, possibly indicating new users of the road who had not signed up for ETC before the toll reduction.