How a fast lane may replace a congestion toll

This paper considers a congested bottleneck. A fast lane reserves a more than proportional share of capacity to a designated group of travelers. Travelers are otherwise identical and other travelers can use the reserved capacity when it would otherwise be idle. The paper shows that such a fast lane is always Pareto improving under Nash equilibrium in arrival times at the bottleneck and inelastic demand. It can replicate the arrival schedule and queueing outcomes of a toll that optimally charges a constant toll during part of the demand peak. Within some bounds, the fast lane scheme is still welfare improving when demand is elastic.

► Bottleneck congestion with general scheduling preferences. ► A fast lane scheme is defined. ► It can be robustly implemented in real time, requiring little information. ► It can always be made welfare improving. ► It is always Pareto improving when demand is perfectly inelastic.