Credit charge-cum-reward scheme for green multi-modal mobility

To promote green mobility and alleviate congestion and emissions, this study proposes a credit charge-cum-reward (CCR) scheme where the government determines mode-specific credit charging and rewarding rates together with charging and redemption prices to achieve regulation objectives. Over a CCR scheme period, travelers choose either driving by consuming credits or taking transit to accumulate credits to minimize individual travel costs. At the end of the period, the individual credit balance will be settled by the government at a charging (redemption) price for credit deficits (surpluses). From the viewpoint of travelers, we consider their heterogeneity in value of time and characterize their periodic mode usage equilibrium by formulating a decision optimization problem. From the viewpoint of the government, we discuss the design of CCR schemes without and with revenue constraints. We also investigate the Pareto-improvement and revenue-neutrality of CCR schemes. We prove theoretically and numerically that the proposed CCR scheme flexibly facilitates multi-modal traffic demand management by regulating travelers’ periodic mode usage behavior via charging and rewarding rates and differentiated charging and redemption prices.