CURACAO (Coordination of Road User Charging Organisational Issues) is an EU-funded project that aims to show how road user charging (RUC) can work in practice. It is being coordinated by Transport and Travel Research, UK, and will build on results from previous RUC projects such as ProGRESS (Pricing Road use for Greater Responsibility, Efficiency and Sustainability in cities) and CUPID (Coordinating Urban Pricing Integrated Demonstrations). Under CURACAO, a user group of cities that have an interest in implementing RUC schemes will be created. They will be offered a methodology for implementation designed to address known barriers to RUC, e.g. the choice of technology. They will also have access to expert support during implementation including that from cities that took part in ProGRESS (Bristol, UK; Copenhagen, Denmark; Edinburgh, UK; Genoa, Italy; Gothenburg, Sweden; Helsinki, Finland; Rome, Italy; and Trondheim, Norway). Details are given of the demonstration and modelling exercises conducted by these cities leading to the implementation of RUC in some cities. The reasons why CURACAO hopes to be less restricted by political issues than CUPID are outlined. Members of the CURACAO project are listed. The challenge for CURACAO is to develop a generic urban blueprint for the deployment of RUC in European cities.
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