Analysis of optimal BOT highway capacity and economic toll adjustment provisions under traffic demand uncertainty

For planning a build-operate-transfer (BOT) highway, a rigid contract between a government and private firms with fixed capacity and economic toll adjustment (ETA) provisions to traffic demand variations is practically adopted to cope with the risk caused by uncertain traffic demand. This study develops a two-stage stochastic programming model to determine its optimal highway capacity and ETA strategy, and deeply analyze some insightful properties of this type of contract. Finally, it is compared with two other “very rigid” single-stage BOT contracts with the fixed toll and capacity provisions.