Should We Pay People to Drive Off-Peak?

For as great a problem as rush-hour traffic is in most major cities around the world, viable solutions are pretty hard to come by. Building more roads only encourages more driving, and some experts believe the only hope to the problem is congestion pricing. But to date only a small handful of cities have implemented pricing plans — Singapore, London, and Stockholm are the leading examples — and while a good deal of research points to their success, other work suggests legitimate limitations.

Congestion pricing is an economics-based approach to the traffic problem that focuses on punishing certain behaviors: in this case, driving during peak hours. But a good deal of psychological evidence suggests that rewards are often more effective than punishments at changing behavior. Studies have found that when drivers are lured onto mass transit with a pre-paid pass, for instance, they enjoy the transportation mode more than they thought they would.