ROAD PRICING FOR CONGESTION MANAGEMENT: A SURVEY OF INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE. SYNTHESIS OF HIGHWAY PRACTICE 210

This synthesis will be of interest to transportation agency administrators and managers, state and regional planners, metropolitan planning organizations, policymakers, economists, traffic engineers, and others concerned with reducing traffic congestion in urban areas. The report discusses the experience of several foreign countries that use road pricing as a tool for congestion management, usually called congestion pricing. The purpose of this synthesis is to summarize the experiences of these foreign ventures to provide insights into the applicability of similar ideas in the U.S. The focus is on political and policy objectives, the institutional and technical considerations in implementing the proposals, the impacts on traffic and related factors in the urban environment, and public reactions. To introduce the foreign experience, the synthesis describes the various congestion pricing schemes, and their automated or electronic tolling technologies. Case studies of congestion pricing experiences are presented for Singapore, Hong Kong, the Scandinavian toll ring cities, as well as intercity congestion pricing in France. The Netherlands and the United Kingdom have undertaken the first full-scale studies of congestion pricing for huge metropolitan areas, and thereby have greatly advanced our knowledge of what to expect from such policies and how they might be implemented. One key conclusion of this study is that properly designed congestion pricing schemes can substantially reduce traffic congestion. Study results show that congestion pricing need not be costly to implement or administer. The schemes in operation require only about 10 or 12 percent of their revenues to cover operating and enforcement costs.