California Partners for Advanced Transportation Technology

Recent literature has extensively discussed the social costs of highway travel.  Over the next few years, driver behavior should become more informed with the advent and deployment of in-vehicle navigation systems. Information technology will provide the driver the minimum travel time between his or her current location and final destination, updated to consider real-time recurring and non-recurring congestion. This paper considers the effects of those systems, which not only reduce the driver's travel time and vehicle operating costs, but also have positive or negative external travel time effects for other commuters and environmental effects for society at large. Furthermore, over the long term, such systems may reduce the need to construct additional highway infrastructure, or may induce additional demand.