Understanding buy in for risky prospects: Incorporating degree of belief into the ex ante assessment of support for alternative road pricing schemes

Abstract

This paper investigates support for road pricing reform within the framework of a referendum voting choice model. Central to this task is how to identify ex ante support for specific road pricing schemes, such that the evidence is believable. Our approach is centred on a referendum voting choice model for alternative road pricing schemes in which we incorporate information that accounts for the degree of belief of the extent to which such schemes will make voters better or worse off. We find that accounting for belief in the benefits results in sizeable reductions in the sensitivity to the levels of the charge but quite small impacts on the sensitivity to revenue allocation.