How does trip frequency distort time value to impact congestion charging schemes?

A notable feature of a city or region with close economic and social connections with its neighbours is its highly mixed local and external traffic,and in some cases the external traffic volume is almost as high as that of local traffic.Whilst local traffic volume may be largely made up of the same regular local commuters making frequent trips,external traffic from outside of the city(region)may not be the same people making regular trips to/from the city.However,from a large pool of people making infrequent trips to/from the city,the existence of external traffic is proven by data from the licence plate recognition system of road vehicles in Changde,China.The function of value of time correlated with the income/wage rate and trip frequency is exploited and verified statistically.The time value distorted by trip frequency is defined as perceived time value(PTV),which also influences the way travellers perceive any travel impedance such as congestion delay and toll charges.This paper analyses the price of anarchy(POA)when explicitly considering the travel frequency of the trip-makers and their PTV,and compares with previous analysis without considering travel frequency.We show that when travel frequency is considered,the optimal toll of congested road pricing schemes which converts road traffic flow from user equilibrium into system optimization is much lower than that without considering travel frequency.The cost of licence plate auction cannot be treated as a congestion toll,which is only a threshold of vehicle ownership.That travellers choose routes by PTV rather than TV(time value)is proven by an example of Heishipu Bridge in Changsha,Hunan Province,China.

How does environmental concern influence public acceptability of congestion charging?Evidence from Beijing

As a market-based instrument of transportation demand management,congestion charge can not only effectively reduce traffic congestion,but also improve air quality.However,due to its low public acceptability,this policy only has a few urban practices.As one of the fast-growing metropolises in emerging economies that are facing both traffic congestion and industrial pollution problems,Beijing is now considering the feasibility of implementing congestion charging.Some researchers address that though people with strong environmental concerns are more prone to support congestion charges,the associations between environmental concerns and support for congestion charges are context-dependent.A survey was conducted in Beijing in 2016 to understand how the pollution context in cities of emerging economies affects these associations.We find that the acceptability in Beijing is 33%,and expected policy effects and environmental concerns are the most important impact factors.Due to the influence of the regional industrial pollution context,most residents in Beijing do not consider congestion charge to be an effective way to tackle air pollution.Under these circumstances,even if the public environmental concerns,in general,are high and congestion charges are“marketed”as environmental policies,there is no guarantee that policy support will rise.

Analysis on the Feasibility of Collecting Traffic Congestion Charges in Beijing

On the basis of analyzing connotation of congestion pricing,through the qualitative analysis of the main content and implementation effect of the congestion policy in cities such as Singapore,London and Stockholm,the basic conditions for urban congestion charges were summarized.Compared with Beijing’s urban development,traffic development status,urban transport infrastructure and social factors,the current policy of traffic congestion charging is still not available from the perspective of the current status of car ownership in Beijing,residents’ travel composition,and population density distribution.

Numbers

6.7% China＇s GDP growth in Q3 201610.4% Growth of China＇s retail sales in the January-September period$34 bln Taobao＇s brand value, the most valuable in China

Efficient transport pricing-why,what,and when?

Striking a balance between societal benefits and costs of transportation lies at the heart of transport planning and transport systems analysis.Increased transport and urbanization enable the many benefits of modern socieities through specialization of labour,production and lifestyles-but these trends simultaneously increase the drawbacks of transportation,such as carbon emissions,congestion,noise and air quality problems.Technical developments and improved infrastrastructure can help reduce these drawbacks,but they do not solve the fundamental problem that those reaping the benefits of transport-travellers,firms,customers-do not perceive the full social costs of transportation.To balance transport costs and benefits,efficient pricing is necessary.Despite a wealth of theoretical arguments,technical developments and substantial practical experience,efficient transport pricing is still rare.Focusing on the example of urban congestion pricing,this paper summarizes why transport pricing is needed,lessons learnt from practical experience,and what the main obstacles are.The two most important obstacles seem to be political power struggles between different levels of governments,and that even if total social gains vastly exceed total social losses,the losses tend to be more salient;losers tend to be easy to identify,while winners tend to be more dispersed and perhaps only exist in the future.