Identifying circumstances in which the introduction of distance-based, cordon-based, and congestion-free lane road user charge regimes garner support

Abstract

The most challenging transport reform has always been associated with re-pricing of car use. Despite the growing levels of congestion on our roads, there is general reluctance to support a package of pricing reforms designed to make each and every car user potentially better off financially and/or in saving time. There exist a number of systemwide charging reforms such as the Oregon kilometre-based charging regime, but they are in the main opt-in models, which offer an appealing way for politicians to support the ideals of giving everyone a choice. The cordon-based congestion charging schemes in London, Milan, Stockholm, Gothenburg, New York, and Singapore, while applying to all users who enter a specific location, are limited to one location as is the idea of a congestion-free priced lane. This paper focuses on re-pricing options (with varying charges) to identify how residents are likely to respond to peak period distance-based charging throughout an entire city, cordon-based charges in a defined geographical area, and congestion-free priced lanes on major roads. A series of road pricing initiatives were offered to over 4,000 individuals in seven countries, seeking advice on whether a particular initiative is likely to have a positive or negative impact (or none at all) on how they travel, revealing support or otherwise for a specific re-pricing regime. For each road pricing initiative, we ran a generalised ordered logit model to identify what contextual variables influence the probability of an initiative being associated with a positive impact, a negative impact, or no impact. We are especially interested in understanding how prior “windows of change” associated with lifestyle, mobility, work, commuting, and environmental preferences condition support or otherwise for each road pricing reform initiative. The findings provide suggestions on the extent to which each of the eight initiatives assessed can deliver support or otherwise for road pricing reforms from individuals whose recent past is associated with one or more of the 70 windows of change investigated.