Road Congestion Pricing in Europe. Implications for the United States

In February 2003, the London Congestion Charging Scheme was introduced and in 2006 a similar policy was introduced in Stockholm. In both cases automobile traffic entering the cordon declined by about 20 percent. This book evaluates these and other similar programs exploring their implications for the United States.
While there is increasing interest in road pricing in the USA in many individual states, the motivation is often highway financing rather than congestion relief. The contributors argue that the prospects for extensive implementation in the USA remain uncertain. Nevertheless, this book illustrates that the European experience suggests political feasibility is much less of a hurdle than was once considered and that congestion pricing would have a significant impact in reducing traffic as it did in Europe.
This study’s value lies in the fact that it examines road pricing in the real world and not simply from a theoretical viewpoint. As a comparative study it will appeal to both policymakers and academics in transportation economics and planning, urban economics, planning and economic geography.

CONTENTS

List of contributors
Preface
Introduction
Harry W. Richardson and Chang-Hec Christine Bae

Part I UK Applications 
• Profit-maximising transit in combination with a congestion charge: an inter-modal equilibrium model
Michael G H. Bell and Muanmas Wichiensin 
• Road pricing in Britain and its relevance to the United States: findings from two scenarios of national road charging in Great Britain and some reflections on governance
Terence Bendixson
• National road pricing in Great Britain: is it fair and practical? 
Stephen Glaister and Daniel J. Graham
• Cambridge Futures: forecasting the effect of congestion charging on land use and transport 
Anthony J. Hargreavcs and Marcial Echenique
• Road user charging in the UK: the policy prospects 
Martin G Richards
• Design tools for road pricing cordons
Anthony D. May, S.P Shepherd. A. Sumalee and A. Koh

Part II London
• The London Congestion Charging Scheme, 2003 - 2006
Georgina Santos
• The Big Smoke: congestion charging and the environment
David Banister
• The effects of the London Congestion Charging Scheme on ambient air quality
Kenny Ho and David Maddison
• Transferring London congestion charging to US cities: how might the likelihood of successful transfer be increased?  
Shin Lee

Part III International Examples
• Inter-urban road goods vehicle pricing in Europe
Chris Nash, Batool Menaz, and Bryan Matthews
• Worse than a congestion charge: Paris traffic restraint policy
Rémy Prud’homme and Pierre Kopp
• The European and Asian experience of implementing
congestion charging: its applicability to the United States
Tom Rye and Stephen Ison
• The Stockholm congestion charging system: a summary of the effects
Jonas Eliasson, KarEn Brundell-Freij and Muriel Beser Hugosson

Part IV The United States
• The Puget Sound (Seattle) congestion pricing pilot experiment
Chang-Hee Christine Bae and Alon Bassok
• The US context for highway congestion pricing
Bumsoo Lee and Peter Gordon
• Expansion of toll lanes or more free lanes? A case study of SR91 in Southern California
Harry W. Richardson, Peter Gordon, James E. Moore II, Sungbin Cho and Qisheng Pan
• The political calculus of congestion pricing
David King, Michael Manville and Donald Shoup

Index

EDITOR:

Harry W. Richardson is the James Irvine Chair of Urban and Regional Planning in the School of Policy, Planning and Development and Professor of Economics at the University of Southern California. 
Chang-Hee Christine Bae is Associate Professor of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA.