Congestion pricing thins carpoolers on SF Bay Bridge

Ironically, vehicles carrying a lot of people are taken off the road by congestion pricing more than vehicles with just a driver. At least in San Francisco.

Peak period tolls on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge went up  in summer of 2012.  Carpoolers — who until then had not paid for peak hours travel — were hit with an automatic (electronic) toll.
According to a report from the University  of California Transportation Center at Berkeley, “On the basis of 29 months of time series data, the introduction of carpool charges had a stronger impact on traffic volumes than did peak period pricing of regular traffic.”  The report  says it’s likely  â€śsignificant” number of carpoolers stopped travelling, switched routes or drove alone. “More than half the loss in carpool traffic
was estimated to be attributable to the toll increase, a far stronger influence than factors such as rising gasoline prices and unemployment,” says the report. Individual drivers, it seems, were  â€śfairly insensitive” to variable pricing.