[natrius]

The demand for road space is only inelastic for people who drive themselves. For everyone else, choosing to share a ride with more people and accept a route with more stops is a good way to consume less road space. Express lanes make that trade-off possible.

[Bartweiss]

But that's a perfect-information decision. Going to work and discovering at the end of the day that going home costs 30x as much isn't something people account for - we're losing market inefficiency because pricing information isn't available until after people make their decision.

[natrius]

Right. Traffic is unpredictable, and the only way to adjust for it is if far fewer people bring their cars with them in the morning so they have choices on the way back. Traffic is a choice we've made as a society, and we need to create more ways for people to opt out of it. Capping tolls just forces everyone to deal with traffic.

[nshelly]

The solution would be for Transurban (or another party) needs to sell options to allow drivers to lock-in fares ahead of time, and if they decide not to use them, allow them to sell off the options to drivers on the spot the same-day. Of course managing this options market would be a headache.

[mikeash]

The prices are displayed before you enter the express lanes. If they're too high, you can divert.