With the success of the congestion charging scheme in the UK's capital city, road pricing has now generally come to be accepted as one of the solutions for achieving sustainable transport. There are many other world cities considering the use of charging. There is a clear message for politicians and transport planners alike, and that is they will not find an infrastructure solution to congestion. Building more roads provides only temporary respite with new traffic simply arriving to fill up the extra capacity. Similarly, providing good public transport alone will not encourage people to switch from using their cars. Take Munich for example, where there is an excellent integrated public transport system with huge investment being pumped in, but public transport use is actually falling with congestion rising fast. This is because public transport improvements have not been introduced alongside car restraint measures. To solve congestion and to achieve a truly sustainable transport system, we need see the carrot and the stick applied together. (a) For the covering entry of this conference, please see ITRD abstract no. E212706.
Abstract