Road pricing in urban areas

Road pricing has been promoted by transport economists for decades as a means of solving congestion problems in big cities. Congestion causes enormous costs to society in a number of ways; for example, overall transport costs rise, polluting emissions increase, the demand for infrastructure is artificially driven up. The social benefits of solving the congestion problem would therefore be enormous. And yet, despite repeated recommendations from experts and strong verbal support from the European Institutions, few politicians have so far had the courage to introduce urban road pricing (London being the recent, inspiring, exception). One major obstacle to introducing rational tools in urban transport policies is a lack of knowledge. This leads to the many pervasive misunderstandings and prejudices which influence the public debate on urban road pricing. One reason for this obstacle has been the lack of a comprehensive, easily accessible, introduction to the present knowledge on the issue. T&E therefore very much welcomes the initiative taken by the Swedish National Road Administration to produce just such a report. "Urban road pricing" was originally produced in Swedish by the Swedish National Road Administration, for a Swedish audience. Still, the content is of general interest and certainly fills a gap in the international debate. It has been designed to present the information in an unbiased way. As co-publisher of the English translation, T&E is proud to contribute to the dissemination of the report. While we support the report's findings, T&E does not necessarily share any opinions expressed therein. Any errors remain the responsibility of the authors. Parliament's decision on continued development of the transportation system emphasizes adaptation to provide a sustainable transportation system. The planning is based on sub-goals of the transportation policy and parliament's vision of what they desire to achieve. The planning has to satisfy both the need of transportation and the ambition to accomplish sustainable solutions. New effective combinations of established, as well as new and untried policy measures and inputs must be considered and used in order to attain stipulated goals. In this respect, the National Road Administration has made use of a method involving the so-called four-step principle, with focus on gradual testing of measures, starting with " soft " measures that affect the need of transportation, choice of mode, and efficiency. It is not until such measures have been found insufficient for solving a problem that other measures such as new road constructions or …