London, is a world city with a population of almost 8 million and a very significant daily commuter inflow to the central areas by rail from as far away as 100 miles. In the central area of London, public transport is still the dominant transport mode during the working day. Nevertheless, increasing traffic congestion had reduced speeds to such an extent that average speeds in central London were no faster in 2002 than 100 years before when road transport was still predominantly horse drawn. This congestion also had the effect of making bus transport slow, unreliable and unattractive. With this scenario in mind, the first Mayor of London set transport as a high priority for his first term of office, which is due to end in May 2004. He therefore proposed to introduce a congestion charge to reduce traffic demand in central London and thus combat congestion. Although new financial charges are never popular, there has been a recognition for some time that something has to be done to combat congestion, and a report in the London Evening Standard in September 2002 showed a small majority in favour of the then proposed congestion charging scheme. The paper sets out the details of the scheme, its operational characteristics and presents initial results from the first few months of the operation of the scheme. The presentation will present further results where these are available. For the covering abstract see ITRD E135448.
Abstract