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> It's kind of hilarious seeing all of these people commenting about how this is "utopian" thinking... I suppose you're referring to me, since I'm the only one

> It's kind of hilarious seeing all of these people commenting about how this is "utopian" thinking... I suppose you're referring to me, since I'm the only one who has used that word. To clarify, I was replying to a comment, not making any comment directly relevant to the paper or PoA. That said, if someone applied this paper's results directly to a defense of anarchy, I would call that application Utopian because I don't think game theory provides a particularly compelling model for all of society. FWIW such an application certainly wasn't the author's intent, and also is not what was going on in that thread. > Makes you wonder if a globally-standard-but-locally-owned electronic tolling system could replace gas taxes to fund our roads in a fairer way. This could remove the undue toll burden shouldered by certain unlucky people who have to commute across a heavily tolled bridge. (Seattlites should know what I'm talking about). This is an interesting idea (which I think is the role that mathematical models applied to social systems should play -- as a stimulant for interesting ideas and possibly a way of bounding the possible. A basis from which you rapidly diverge, which is OK. TBF I think this is what is also going on in the other thread...) By "standard", do you mean "every mile is taxed equally"? Or "according to construction/upkeep cost"? The latter seems hard to calculate and easy to fabricate. I think in a realistic system you'd just always end up with really high bridge tolls. In that sense, I think this application of this paper is Utopian in the sense that, when applied to the toll problem, it makes unwarranted assumptions about accurate pricing. If by standard you just mean "equal", why not just use gas taxes and set them so that tolls aren't necessary? They approximate distance traveled pretty well, so should be pretty identical to tolling each mile equally. With the added benefit of also indirectly taxing pollution.

sebastos 10y ago
Nothing personal about your comment particularly - I agree with how you're characterizing it. I was reacting to the instant jump to political thought people were making when the PoA has plenty of interesting implications in the merely technological realm :) > By "standard", do you mean "every mile is taxed equally"? Or "according to construction/upkeep cost"? Perhaps confusing wording on my part - by standard I meant that the system that actually detects the car and charges the dollars and cents is standardized. In other words, a frictionless lingua franca for tolling that exerted negligible inconvenience on the driver as they were driving. Think "everybody has a Visa", not "every item costs $1". The tolls themselves would be priced neither uniformly nor "at cost" to offset construction expenses. Rather, they would simply be set to maximize profit for the local municipality that owned the tolling machines. Pricing the edges to maximize profit minimizes congestion, and theoretically does exactly as well as a super-deity oracle with perfect information that could plan everybody's route from start to finish. (This perhaps counterintuitive result is described in ref 2 from the grandparent). Whatever money is made in aggregate is used for all repairs and maintenance, so the idea is that small back roads would help to subsidize the cost of bridges, which are disproportionately expensive to repair compared to their importance in the road network. More importantly, the price to drive on any road is directly reflective of the externality you impose while driving on it. Right now, the expense and complication of exacting the toll is high enough that we only extract tolls at critical points like bridges, which means we only use tolls to discourage congestion in these few places. We set the tolls too high there to offset the fact that there should be tolls on feeder streets and other areas that are getting backed up and contributing to the overall gridlock. In practice, you'd have to get around some issues surrounding the advertisement of road prices to the driver. The system would have to strike a balance between being fair and fatiguing drivers with too much shopping choice. In this respect, perhaps you could be right that there is some idealized thinking going on. But it is just an idea, after all.
- Jarwain 10y ago
  This reminds me of the sunpass/turnpike system in South Florida. A toll is charged to your account by driving through toll booths located at entrance and exit ramps (done through an RFID chip or something similar appended to the windshield). The tolls generated are used towards maintaining that highway. It tends to be much less congested with more considerate drivers, compared to 95.

sebastos 10y ago

Nothing personal about your comment particularly - I agree with how you're characterizing it. I was reacting to the instant jump to political thought people were making when the PoA has plenty of interesting implications in the merely technological realm :) > By "standard", do you mean "every mile is taxed equally"? Or "according to construction/upkeep cost"? Perhaps confusing wording on my part - by standard I meant that the system that actually detects the car and charges the dollars and cents is standardized. In other words, a frictionless lingua franca for tolling that exerted negligible inconvenience on the driver as they were driving. Think "everybody has a Visa", not "every item costs $1". The tolls themselves would be priced neither uniformly nor "at cost" to offset construction expenses. Rather, they would simply be set to maximize profit for the local municipality that owned the tolling machines. Pricing the edges to maximize profit minimizes congestion, and theoretically does exactly as well as a super-deity oracle with perfect information that could plan everybody's route from start to finish. (This perhaps counterintuitive result is described in ref 2 from the grandparent). Whatever money is made in aggregate is used for all repairs and maintenance, so the idea is that small back roads would help to subsidize the cost of bridges, which are disproportionately expensive to repair compared to their importance in the road network. More importantly, the price to drive on any road is directly reflective of the externality you impose while driving on it. Right now, the expense and complication of exacting the toll is high enough that we only extract tolls at critical points like bridges, which means we only use tolls to discourage congestion in these few places. We set the tolls too high there to offset the fact that there should be tolls on feeder streets and other areas that are getting backed up and contributing to the overall gridlock. In practice, you'd have to get around some issues surrounding the advertisement of road prices to the driver. The system would have to strike a balance between being fair and fatiguing drivers with too much shopping choice. In this respect, perhaps you could be right that there is some idealized thinking going on. But it is just an idea, after all.

Jarwain 10y ago
This reminds me of the sunpass/turnpike system in South Florida. A toll is charged to your account by driving through toll booths located at entrance and exit ramps (done through an RFID chip or something similar appended to the windshield). The tolls generated are used towards maintaining that highway. It tends to be much less congested with more considerate drivers, compared to 95.