Road Pricing For Congestion Management

"The synthesis describes the experience of several foreign countries that have used road pricing, or congestion pricing, as a means to manage congestion. The synthesis contains dicussions of the policy, equity, and implementation issues associated with congestion pricing. Several of the schemes described were planned or implemented as methods to increase roadway funding rather than for congestion management, but have had the effect of changing travel patterns."--Avant-propos.

Traffic congestion affects towns and cities everywhere and in some places it is regarded as one of the most urgent and important problems in need of a solution. Road pricing is undoubtedly recognised as an effective traffic demand management tool. The recent London congestion charging scheme seems to be showing that public and political opposition is not insurmountable. Thus, the ghost that prevented the introduction of a policy supported by transport economists for over 80 years seems to have disappeared or at least, weakened.The book contains twelve papers useful to different types of audience, such as researchers and postgraduate students, civil servants, policy makers and consultants. The first part is mainly theoretical and concentrates on second-best congestion pricing including pricing in urban contexts, the impact on the performance of the road network, optimal locations and charge levels, dynamic aspects such as time variation of tolls, potential impacts of road pricing on costs and service quality of public transport buses, and efficiency costs and transport sector effects of different types of pricing when they guarantee a balanced budget per mode.The second part contains chapters that describe the schemes in place around the world such as Singapore, Norway, London, and the US. The volume is an update of the state of the art on the subject and the first one to have been written and appear after the London scheme was implemented and to contain an assessment of its preliminary impacts.

Congestion costs highway users billions of dollars every year. Although policymakers have adopted a variety of strategies for reducing or mitigating congestion, relatively little attention has been paid to policies to promote more efficient use of the highway system. One such policy is congestion pricing, under which drivers are charged a higher price for use of a highway at times or places with heavy traffic and a lower price in the opposite circumstances. This book explains how congestion pricing works, reviews the best available evidence on projects that make use of such pricing in order to assess the benefits and challenges of the approach, and discusses federal policy options for encouraging congestion pricing. Congestion pricing also can be linked to strategies to improve mobility by making alternatives to the private automobile, such as subways, buses or commuter rail service, more attractive during peak periods. The revenues generated by such pricing have sometimes been used to pay for improvements in public transportation systems. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

Offers policy-oriented, research-based recommendations for effectively managing traffic and cutting excess congestion in large urban areas.

Road pricing (tolls, etc.) as a means of generating revenue for infrastructure investment has become a major policy option in both Europe and North America. It can also be used as a policy in the management of traffic demand and flow, environmental objectives, and optimal resource allocation as regards the size of investments. Road pricing is assumed to be able to solve many problems simultaneously -- congestion control, pollution reduction, and investment financing. This volume assembles and assesses theoretical knowledge, empirical results and experiences of actual road pricing. In addition, the impact of new information technology on future policy formulation is considered.

This book describes the theory and practice of congestion charging using advanced electronic systems. The general principles and potential benefits are presented and a framework for good practice established. The financial, institutional, technological and social issues that must be addressed are outlined and a comparitive assessment and review of current and pilot projects in Europe and South-East Asia are given. Since the first edition was published, there have been significant developments in road pricing practice. This edition of Road Pricing has been widely revised, updating the case studies and expanding coverage to include the latest developments in the UK, Europe and the USA, providing further essential up-to-date iformation in current theory and practice in congestion charging for policy-makers and practitioners.

Examines the regulation of road traffic congestion in theory and practice, within the context of social and political feasibility. Looks at Pigouvian taxes, the most popular policy prescription among economists, and considers a variety of other policies which may be more politically and socially acceptable. Other subjects discussed include congestion and urban development, congestion pricing and road infrastructure investment, and road pricing and urban sustainability. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR