Technion, Visiting Professor at ETH
November 12, 2025, 11:00GC B1 10
The Tel-Aviv Metropolitan Area (TAMA) is one of the most congested metropolitan areas in the world (21st most congested area according to Tom-Tom). Accordingly, the government of Israel has passed legislation to apply congestion pricing in the TAMA and a tender to implement it by 2027 including planning, construction, operation, and maintenance. The congestion scheme includes three rings around the city of Tel Aviv and provides the ability to charge according to the distance traveled in the congestion area but is relatively simple to implement and to be understood by drivers. This presentation summarizes the work done for the Israel Government to recommend the optimal congestion scheme to reduce congestion and improve accessibility. The methodology consists of two main sets of tools: 1) an advanced choice-based conjoint (CBC) survey and discrete choice models and 2) two high-resolution transportation models that represent the dynamics of travelers' adaptation to the varying traffic conditions and charges in space and time. To enable representative of many alternative travel modes, the SP was designed as a serious of conditional probability choices presented in a sequence of choice sets asking for the preferred mode among 14 alternative travel modes. The survey was distributed among 3900 respondents each responding to four choice scenarios, each consisting of four sub-choices, to a total of 3900*16 choices. The data were used to estimate a scaled multinomial logit model, applied as a nested structure according to the choice process. To obtain a robust estimate of the impact of the toll we use two different regionals models and compare their results. The first model is the Tel-Aviv Activity-Based Model, and the second one is a MATSim based multi-agent transport simulation. The newly estimated SP-model was integrated into these two regional models to enhance behavioral realism regarding travelers� responses to congestion pricing. Various scenarios were developed and tested, including various congestion pricing schemes, such as all-day charges, different numbers and shapes of the rings, and dynamic charging. These scenarios were used to develop congestion pricing application recommendations.
Yoram Shiftan is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Technion, and the Joseph Meyerhoff Chair in Urban and Regional Planning. He specializes in travel behavior, transport policy, and transport project evaluation. He established and for the last five years was the head of the Israeli Center for Smart Transportation Research, the past editor of Transport Policy, and the past chair of the International Association of Travel Behavior Research (IATBR). He has 35 years of experience in both academic and practical work in travel behavior and travel demand model estimation for major metropolitan areas such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, and Tel-Aviv, and was one of the main contributors to the development of Activity-Based Models. In recent years, his research has focused on the activity and travel behavior implications of driverless cars, new mobility services, and their potential impact on our cities. Professor Shiftan also has vast experience in the evaluation and decision-making process of major transportation investments both in Israel and the US, currently consulting the Israel Government on the cost-benefit analysis of the Tel-Aviv metro system, an estimated investment of over 40 billion USD. Prof. Shiftan received his Ph.D. from MIT, has published over a hundred refereed papers, and co-edited five books. Overall, he spent 4.5 years as a visiting professor at leading universities in Europe and the US: George Mason, VA., University of Michigan, Ohio State University, ETH Zurich, University of Illinois, Chicago, and Northwestern, IL, and currently he is on Sabbatical at ETH Zurich again.