INFORMATION AND USAGE OF CONGESTIBLE FACILITIES UNDER DIFFERENT PRICING REGIMES

Uncertainty about usage conditions is common in many congestible facil ities. In this paper we consider the effects of providing information to prospective users under three regimes: free access, non-responsive congestion tolling, and responsive tolling based on current informatio n. With either free access or non-responsive tolling better informatio n can induce changes in usage that reduce expected social surplus. But responsive tolling assures that better information is welfare improvi ng. The joint welfare gains from providing information and tolling can be larger or smaller than the sum of the gains from implementing each independently. Superadditivity is likely to obtain when demand is pri ce elastic.