Gasoline and electric vehicle ownership rationing over time: Lottery vs. First-come-first-served schemes

This paper addresses the ownership rationing issues of gasoline vehicles (GV) and electric vehicles (EV) in a given time horizon. A state-owned vehicle manufacturer is assumed to be the producer of these vehicles. Two typical rationing schemes for the GV and EV ownership that have been implemented in some Chinese megacities, namely a simultaneous lottery scheme for both GV and EV and a hybrid scheme consisting of lottery for GV and first-come-first-served (FCFS) for EV, are investigated. Multi-period social cost minimization models are proposed for determining the optimal auto quota (i.e., the number of vehicles to be produced) and the optimal frequency of ownership allocation for each scheme in the given time horizon. In the proposed models, residents’ heterogeneity is considered in terms of their values of time (VOTs). The properties of the proposed models are analytically explored, and a comparison between the lottery mode and the FCFS mode is made. The results show that the lottery mode outperforms the FCFS mode in terms of the total social cost. The VOT threshold of the subsequent participants in auto rationing schemes tends to be higher than that of the preceding participants. The decision of EV subsidy should be cautiously made due to a tug of war between the resultant decreased pollutant emissions and increased traffic congestion. The implementation of the auto ownership rationing schemes can cause inequity issue in terms of the changes of travel costs of different-income residents. A Pareto-improvement strategy is presented to balance equity and efficiency of the rationing schemes.