Highlights We measure the willingness-to-pay of hybrid vehicle owners to use California’s HOV lanes without having to carpool. We argue this serves as a lower bound to the value of being able to drive in California’s High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. We use a novel non-parametric estimator to estimate the value of the sticker over time. We find that the value of the stickers is very high, and the air pollution benefits are low. A more efficient policy would be auctioning space in HOV lanes and using the proceeds to reduce pollution from other sources.
Abstract The 2005 California Clean Air Access Sticker program offered stickers to owners of hybrid cars allowing unrestricted access to High Occupancy Vehicle lanes. The program was conceived as a zero-cost mechanism to encourage purchase of hybrid cars and to reduce air pollution. Information from sales of used hybrids allows us to estimate sticker market value. We then derive the value of excess HOV space the hybrids occupied, which is considerably greater than the air pollution benefits achieved. A more effective policy would sell space to drivers of any vehicle and use the revenue to stimulate hybrid demand, preferably via direct subsidy.
Hybrid cars and HOV lanes
Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice ; 67 ; 304-319
2014-07-08
16 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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