Traffic congestion is among the main market failures in modern cities. Dynamic marginal external cost pricing is the textbook economic response to this externality. Recent empirical work has shown that there is an important distinction between short-run departure time choice versus long-run routine formation of commuters, also characterized by differences in values of time and schedule delays for the short-run versus the long-run problem. This paper investigates whether this affects optimal pricing of congested roads. Using a dynamic model of congestion, and integrating it with a dynamic model of routine formation, it is found that contrary to expectation, short-run optimal congestion pricing alone cannot optimally decentralize the optimal formation of long-run routines. A separate instrument is therefore needed to optimize routine formation.

交通拥堵是现代城市的主要市场失灵之一。动态边际外部成本定价是教科书对这种外部性的经济反应。最近的经验工作表明，短期出发时间选择与长期常规通勤者之间存在重要区别，短期和长期问题的时间和计划延误的值也存在差异。本文研究了这是否会影响拥挤道路的最优定价。使用拥塞的动态模型，并将其与例程形成的动态模型相集成，发现与预期相反，仅短期最优拥塞定价无法最佳地分散长期例程的最优形成。因此，需要一个单独的仪器来优化常规形成。