Paying the price for sustainable mobility : the role of trans modal integrated urban transport pricing measures and payment systems towards changing modal split in European cities.

This paper presents the TransPrice project within the EU Transport RTD Programme in the EU 4th Framework Programme. TransPrice was conducted between January 1996 and January 1999 by 18 partners from nine EU member states, and aimed to address issues of trans-modal transport pricing and achieving optimal modal split in urban areas at Pan-European level. The introduction of urban pricing schemes can make important contributions to developing sustainable local and regional transport. TransPrice was based on actions and analyses in eight European cities, in five of which there were demonstrations of pricing measures by real-life application and limited initial field trials of systems and measures. The paper covers the following aspects of TransPrice: (1) project philosophy and principles; (2) project objectives; (3) terminology; (4) integrated transport pricing; (5) pricing measures and actions; (6) travel behaviour research; (7) evaluation methodology; (8) modelling results and methodology, including stated preference (SP) and simulation; (9) demonstration results; (10) public and political acceptability; and (11) evaluation results. Six recommendations are made on the basis of the evaluation results and the experiences gained with urban transport pricing measures. Some needs for further research are discussed.