This report assesses the level of public acceptance of road pricing within Australia and overseas countries, and reviews the latest technology for electronic toll collection (ETC). Three broad definitions of road pricing are used to facilitate discussion and analysis. There are exciting developments in the acceptance of congestion pricing in several countries. Korea now has congestion tolls on some tunnels purely for the purpose of congestion management and would be the second country apart from Singapore to introduce true congestion pricing schemes. A general picture of a workable and reliable electronic multi-lane open road tolling (EMuLORT) system emerges. Such a system is likely to use a technology based on microwave frequency read-write tags and employ a central computer to process toll account subscribers. One such system is to be in operation in October 1997 in Toronto for the 407 Express Toll Route. It is recommended that two variations of a true congestion pricing scheme be introduced as a first step towards phasing in congestion pricing in Australian cities if such a need arises. The first variation is peak period or variable tolling and can be implemented now on toll roads in Sydney and Brisbane. The second variation is the introduction of high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes to allow solo drivers to pay a toll to use the spare capacity of a high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane, if that HOV lane has spare capacity. (A)
Abstract