Reports:
Paying for road use - technical report
This document has been made available in Adobe Acrobat format for downloading.
The Adobe® Acrobat Reader® can be freely downloaded.
Viewers with visual difficulties may find it useful to investigate services provided to improve the accessibility of Acrobat documents - www.adobe.com/accessibility/index.html
Executive summary
1. This Technical Report sets out the approach that has been used to estimate the impact of comprehensive congestion charging on Britain's roads. The analysis is based on the charges that would be faced, their impacts on traffic flows and speeds and the levels of congestion, time savings, revenues raised, and net benefits (in terms of reductions in travel time and operating costs, less losses to those no longer using the roads because of the prices charged). Estimates are based on existing levels of traffic on Britain's roads.
2. The Report considers the relevant marginal costs of road use, which should form the basis of any charging system in which prices are related to costs in such a way as to achieve efficient use of the existing road network. We survey the recent University of Leeds study of surface transport costs and charges, which identifies congestion costs as by far the single largest component of the external costs of road use.
3. One of the major costs imposed by congestion is on the reliability of the road network. Chapter 3 considers the issue of network unreliability, a matter of increasing concern to industry and to motorists. Because of congestion, it is increasingly difficult to predict how long a journey at a particular time and on a particular day will take. We consider the evidence on network unreliability, how it is related to traffic flow levels, its impact on the road haulage industry, and the valuations that have been undertaken by researchers of the costs that it imposes both on hauliers and on motorists.
4. Chapter 4 describes the basis of the model of congestion costs and pricing which has been developed in the present work to provide detailed estimates of the congestion costs and charges on different sections of the road network, in different parts of the country, in different types of area (urban and rural), on different types of road, and at different times of the day or week.
5. Chapter 5 reviews the evidence on the responsiveness of road users to fuel prices and other charges, to provide a basis for the assumptions used in the model to determine how responsive road users will be to road charges on different types of road. This responsiveness is expressed in terms of the "generalised cost elasticity", which shows how a given percentage change in generalised cost (which equals money costs plus time costs) will impact on traffic levels, in terms of the percentage change in traffic levels.
6. Chapter 6 provides an overview of the impact of congestion charging across the country as a whole, identifying impacts in London and in other types of urban area, in smaller towns, in rural areas and on motorways. We also investigate sensitivity of impacts to the assumed value of the elasticity of demand.
7. Finally, Chapter 7 provides more detailed information on the impacts of the fiscally-neutral scheme proposed by CfIT. Under this scheme congestion charges will be levied on all roads where congestion is a problem, using technology based on Global Positioning Systems to locate each vehicle travelling on the network. Revenue raised from the scheme would then be used to reduce levels of existing taxes on road users, specifically fuel duty and Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). Consequently, road users as a whole would not pay any additional taxation, but would benefit from the considerable reductions in congestion resulting from the scheme. We provide a series of case studies showing the impacts on individual road users.
Return to: Paying for road use index
