Economists agree on the usefulness of road pricing in general, but on very little beyond this. First, they agree that anything offered for free will create an excess demand and hence - in the case of congested roads - pricing is useful. Second, with time varying demand, omnipresent in urban commuter traffic, peak load pricing is common practice elsewhere in the economy, and should be introduced in urban traffic. Road pricing (RP) in a large sense has along tradition in economic literature and in application. In literature Adam Smith advocated it and in practice, road tolls date back to the 19th century. The focus of this study is on recent experiences in urban areas where the main goal has been to alleviate congestion. Apart fromthe traditional motorway tolls there are some interesting new experiencesof how to use tolls for regulating congestion rather than just for financing road maintenance. Two examples of this are presented, i.e. the Sunday evening toll on the A1 motorway north of Paris, France, and the pricing ofseveral managed lanes (former HOV lanes) in the USA. This study introduces a logic for discussing impacts and then discuss these practical applications. With respect to a scheme of possible reaction of drivers determiningtraffic impacts of pricing, the examples discussed show the following: a majority of drivers remains on the road; the most important reaction in the case of area licensing is either change to public transport (if good service available) or change of departure time (if not); detour travel is always present with area licensing, but not too relevant; with link or lane pricing, the expected reaction in terms of more fluid traffic on the pricedfacilities and less congestion on the remaining roads holds for the US lanes, while in the case of a motorway trunk that is priced there may be congestion on the parallel network. Impact assessment is not only relevant onthe traffic level as undertaken here. The translation into costs and benefits and their distribution would be of great relevance from an economist's point of view. However, as in practice, road pricing, like many other transport policies and infrastructure investments are mainly introduced in view of their traffic impact and their expected distributional impacts, thechosen perspective may still contribute to the discussion about this tool. For the covering abstract see ITRD E139491.
Abstract