Credit-based congestion pricing (CBCP) is a novel strategy which seeks to overcome the negative equity impacts of congestion pricing (CP) by allocating monthly budgets to eligible travelers to spend on congestion tolls. Previous CBCP studies have surveyed public opinion and examined the traffic and travel-welfare impacts of an Austin, Texas application. This work develops the policy further, examining expert opinions, predicting traffic impacts, estimating air-quality changes, and predicting system costs. We surveyed transport economists, toll technology experts, administrators, policymakers, and commercial interests for feedback on credit distribution, revenue uses, technology, costs, and system-wide impacts. Various issues involving the different possible uses of CP toll revenues were discussed. In addition, joint destination-mode choice models were estimated and applied for the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) region. Status quo and two marginal cost pricing (MCP) scenarios were simulated for the short-term and long-term, with full feedback, using the method of successive averages for equilibration. As expected under such a policy, total regional vehicle miles traveled was predicted to fall and speeds increase, though significant mode shifts are not predicted. Air quality improvements are also hoped to be a valuable benefit of CBCP, as predicted by mobile source emissions, estimated using MOBILE6. Total travel benefits were quantified as the welfare change between the MCP scenarios and the status quo. On average, most of the DFW population (about 95% of the "budget-eligible" travelers) is expected to gain from the CBCP policy. The analysis does not predict significant benefits to come from pricing all roads, when compared to the case when only freeways are priced. Estimates of policy implementation costs for the DFW region are provided here as well. And MCP toll revenue and sample CBCP traveler budgets were estimated, suggesting that costs will consume about 42% of revenues, leaving the remainder for revenue distribution. Based on these applications, interviews, and synthesis of the pricing literature, this thesis offers detailed recommendations for CBCP implementation

The use of credit-based value pricing (CBVP) is an innovative method of value pricing and may solve several transportation problems, such as traffic congestion and excessive vehicle emissions. This value pricing idea would involve travelers receiving an allocation of credits every period. Different travel behaviors would then require (cost) different numbers of credits. Travelers frequently choosing high-cost credit trips (for example, driving alone on a congested freeway during rush hour) would find themselves short of credits prior to the next period and needing to purchase additional credits from travelers choosing low-cost credit options (for example, transit trips). The cost of the credits would be set in a free market system (much like a stock market) by the buyers and sellers. This research examines technical, administrative, economic, and political issues surrounding several forms of CBVP.