The purpose of this paper is four-fold. First of all, the economic case for charging vehicle users the full social costs of their use of the roads is re-emphasised. Secondly, some encouraging developments can be seen in other countries, where experiments have been installed or are planned to tackle congestion by adopting various "demand-management" techniques. Current research under the European DRIVE programme is outlined which will enable vehicle-users to be debited automatically when passing tolling points at ordinary (motorway) speeds. This will be achieved by means of two-way communications link between moving vehicles and the roadside based upon a microwave link and smart-card technology. The same communications link could facilitate route guidance and on-line fleet control as well. Thirdly, the more commonly-expressed objections to the introduction of variable road-use pricing, based upon the "pay-as-you-drive" principle, are discussed. Acknowledgement of the widespread fears, both real and imagined, of what the consequences might be of such a radical shift in road-use pricing is, in fact, crucial to the achievement of a political consensus in favour of such a change. Fourthly, the shortcomings of zone-based pricing systems are outlined which suggest that "point-pricing" for road-use (as with automatic tolls) should be superseded by "congestion-pricing". This requires an autonomous device on board each vehicle to monitor congestion and charge for it as and when it occurs. An experiment is planned in Cambridge on congestion-pricing based upon research which has just begun at Newcastle University/Polytechnic. This research is financed by SERC and is complementary to that under the DRIVE programme.
Abstract