The impact of charging policies : transport impacts of congestion charging in the Netherlands. The Dutch government has introduced charging policy as a way of traffic regulation in 1998. Since then different options have been investigated during the last two decades. A literature survey however revealed that the expected impacts of charging are small. Merely charging policies to variable costs of a car trip do have a substantial impact in comparison with an increase of fixed costs or the introduction of ‘variabilisation’. Foreign examples confirm this outcome. The recently introduced Congestion Charging in London was therefore reason to research the possible impacts of a similar charging policy in the city centre of Amsterdam. Two relative simple models, which were estimated by the experience of the literature research, show indeed a decrease of auto trips into the Amsterdam city centre. As a result congestion charging could contribute to more accessible and livable city centres. (Author/publisher)
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