Cordon charging in the city of Antwerp. It is well recognised that the Antwerp area has a mobility problem. The purpose of this paper is to suggest a number of potential policy measures that could lead to improvement in the liveability and accessibility of the central city of Antwerp. The emphasis is placed on the fact that a combination of quantity and price measures is likely to be stronger than an individual policy measure. Measures discussed in this paper are: more efficient use of the existing road network by way of separating the urban ring from the regional ring; the pricing policy measure of a toll cordon around the central city. The separation of the urban and regional ring bundles the traffic streams according to destination: the urban for traffic related to the central city and the regional for traffic passing through the Antwerp area. The regional ring is seen as one large-scale two-directional roundabout with the same function along its entire length, namely linking destinations at the international and regional level. The urban ring is parallel to the regional ring. The interchanges between the two rings should be symmetrical so that traffic can use the rings clockwise or counter-clockwise. The second measure is a toll cordon around the central city. The geographical location and form of the central city of Antwerp is convenient for a toll cordon. The purpose of a toll cordon would be to reduce congestion: traffic with a destination in the central city could be encouraged to switch to a different travel mode or to choose for a different departure time. Regional traffic could be kept out of the central city, including situations in which accidents block the regional ring. (Author/publisher)
Abstract