National road pricing: a critique and an alternative

Road pricing is widely advocated as a response to growing traffic congestion. There are, however, a number of significant impediments to implementing a nation-wide scheme including the choice and costs of the technology, concerns about equity and public acceptability, as well as the likelihood that the reduction in congestion brought about by road pricing would be undone by induced traffic. It is suggested that an alternative to road pricing would be to provide road users with advance information about journey times, uncertainty about which is the main detriment associated with congestion, by taking advantage of current developments in in-vehicle navigation devices and real time traffic information.