This introductory chapter on some fundamentals of road pricing covers various aspects of road user charges. The main focus is on traffic control and demand management in urban regions as a component of an overall city management strategy. The chapter starts with an analysis of a road network as a collective resource and the utilisation of road capacity as collective consumption under conditions of idle and congested capacity. A formal model is then presented for the analysis of road pricing in congested networks. There is also a discussion about the way in which road user charges can be motivated. The chapter closes with a list of the characteristics of a good pricing system.
Abstract