Road pricing in a free society

Improved road pricing would be an indispensable element in a road system run on commercial principles, with charges for road use not co-mingled with taxes, and with no discrimination against private road providers. But pricing imposed by a monopoly supplier, to 'restrain' motorised mobility, is unacceptable in a free society.     

On revenue recycling and the welfare effects of second-best congestion pricing in a monocentric city

This paper examines congestion taxes in a monocentric city with pre-existing labor taxation. When road toll revenue is used to finance labor tax cuts, 35% of the optimal road tax in our numerical model does not reflect marginal external congestion costs, but rather functions as a Ramsey–Mirrlees tax, i.e. an efficiency enhancing mechanism allowing for an indirect spatial differentiation of the labor tax. This adds a quite different motivation to road pricing, since welfare gains can be produced even in absence of congestion. We find that the optimal road tax is non-monotonic across space, reflecting the different impacts of labor supply elasticity and marginal utility of income, which both vary over space. The relative efficiencies of some archetype second-best pricing schemes (cordon toll, flat kilometer tax) are high (84% and 70% respectively). When road toll revenue is recycled lump-sum, the optimal toll lies below its Pigouvian level. Extensions in a bimodal framework show that the optimality of using road toll revenue to subsidize public transport depends on the initial inefficiency in public transport pricing.     

The effect of government highway spending on road users' congestion costs

Policymakers attempt to reduce the growth of congestion by spending billions of dollars annually on our road system. We evaluate this policy by estimating the determinants of congestion costs for motorists, trucking operations, and shipping firms. We find that, on average, one dollar of highway spending in a given year reduces the congestion costs to road users only eleven cents in that year. We also find that even if the allocation of spending were optimized to minimize congestion costs that it still is not a cost-effective way to reduce congestion. We conclude the evidence strengthens the case for road pricing.     

A political economy model of road pricing

In this paper, we use a simple majority voting model to study the introduction of urban congestion tolls. The model allows for different types of uncertainty and considers different uses of the toll revenues. The following results are obtained. First, we show that individual uncertainty with respect to modal substitution costs may imply that a majority votes against road pricing ex ante, although a majority would have been in favor after its introduction ex post. Moreover, if a majority is against road pricing ex ante, there will also be no majority for organizing an experiment that would take away the individual uncertainty. Second, political uncertainty with respect to the use of the revenues corroborates the finding that ex ante more voters will be against the introduction of tolls. Third, both types of uncertainty suggest that fewer voters are against road pricing when toll revenues are used to subsidize public transport than when they are redistributed to all voters. Importantly, the results of this paper are consistent with a number of recent empirical observations on efforts to introduce road pricing, including the systematic rejection of road pricing in referenda, the more favorable attitudes towards road pricing after than before its introduction, and tying the toll revenues to support public transport.     

Road Pricing: Solving the Technical Problems

How would road pricing work? Peter Hills and Phil Blythe, of Newcastle University, explain the technical developments which make a variety of road pricing schemes a genuine possibility.     

How to Make Road Pricing Popular

Can road pricing be made popular? Phillip Goodwin, director of the Oxford University Transport Studies Group, explains how road pricing could be made popular with the electorate - and politicians.     

LEARNING TO WALK BEFORE WE CAN PRICE: THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF ROAD PRICING POLICIES

The introduction of widespread road pricing is being considered in the UK and abroad as a means to allocate scarce road space. By looking at the economic costs and benefits of both national and local road pricing schemes, this paper seeks to examine how widely charging should be implemented.     

Voting on road congestion policy

This paper studies the political economy of urban traffic policy. A city council and a regional government (representing city and suburbs) decide respectively on parking fees and a road toll. Both charges are below the optimum when median voters in city and suburbs prefer cars to public transport sufficiently more than the average. Even if the city government would set an optimal road toll, the regional government blocks it when the median suburban voter prefers cars strongly enough. Letting the city control parking and road pricing may therefore increase chances of adoption of the latter. However, if the city controls parking and the region road pricing, the combined charges are higher than if the city controlled them both. Hence, when voters want all charges below the optimum, the involvement of two governments may be desirable. We also find that earmarking road pricing revenues for public transport is welfare-enhancing, compared to lump-sum redistribution, only if they are topped up by extra funds granted to the city by a higher level of government.     

Regional Economic Impacts of Traffic Regulation on Tourism: The Case of Denmark

The paper presents an interregional computable general equilibrium model, LINE, which is used to analyze the regional economic effects of changes in road pricing as they affect and work though the Danish tourism sector. These effects include changes in demand, income and employment by region. The form of road pricing examined in the paper is tolls across a major fixed link. The consequences of changes in these substantial tolls are examined using the modeling framework. The basic modeling approach in LINE is presented, including its tourism sub-model, and empirical results for Denmark are examined.     

基于博弈论的城市道路交通拥挤收费分析

针对城市道路交通拥挤不断加剧,交通供需不平衡矛盾日益尖锐的现实问题,在分析城市道路交通拥挤收费基本原理的基础上,应用博弈论的分析方法,针对交通出行车与交通管理者之间的拥挤收费进行了博弈分析,以期对我国实施该政策具有借鉴意义。     

中国公路货运价格博弈现象分析

公路货物运输在现代物流业中占据重要地位,但是当前中国公路货物运输业恶性竞争剧烈。从博弈论的角度,运用Bertrand寡占模型对企业间价格行为进行分析,从运输企业提供的服务价格与服务质量关系角度出发,用纯战略均衡方法进行探讨,提出公路货物运输企业应采取提供不同服务质量的差别定价战略。     

Electronic Road Pricing for Public Transport

It is increasingly recognised that some form of rationing of congested road space is urgently required. Electronic road pricing would lead to a more rational use of private and public transport, and would influence the development of our towns and cities in the future.     

Road Pricing and the Edge worth Paradox

Can road pricing cure traffic congestion? Dr Martin Mogridge, of the Transport Studies Unit of University College London, explains how taxing cars and subsidising buses could reduce traffic congestion. Readers who may find Dr Mogridge's technical argument difficult should refer to the box.     

The saleability of urban road pricing

The key issues concerning road pricing are now well understood, and they must be addressed at local level if the policy is to be saleable.
This means that objections to pricing need to be addressed at local level.
Experience abroad suggests that equity and the use of the resulting cash flow are likely to be the most significant points that would need to be addressed.     

The effects of road pricing on driver behavior and air pollution

Exploiting the natural experiment created by an unanticipated court injunction, we evaluate driver responses to road pricing. We find evidence of intertemporal substitution toward unpriced times and spatial substitution toward unpriced roads. The effect on traffic volume varies with public transit availability. Net of these responses, Milan’s pricing policy reduces air pollution substantially, generating large welfare gains. In addition, we use long-run policy changes to estimate price elasticities.     

Optimal road capacity in the presence of unpriced congestion

This paper studies how the optimal capacity of a road is affected by a pricing constraint which keeps the toll fixed below its optimal value. The answer is found to depend on the value of the price elasticity of travel demand at the second-best optimum. The pricing constraint lowers the optimal capacity, if the price elasticity is sufficiently high. But under reasonable assumptions, the pricing constraint raises the optimal capacity, if the price elasticity is less than the ratio of the consumer price of travel to the private congestion cost at the second-best optimum. This ratio cannot be less than one.     

非金融企业委托贷款影响审计定价吗？

基于我国2011—2021年非金融类A股上市公司样本,实证考察了非金融企业委托贷款对审计定价的影响及其作用路径。研究发现,非金融企业委托贷款会显著提高审计定价,这种提升作用在股权关联型委托贷款、委托贷款业务复杂度高和处于货币政策紧缩期的企业中更显著。机制检验表明,经营风险和审计延迟是非金融企业委托贷款提高外部审计师审计定价的部分中介因子。研究从非金融企业委托贷款视角丰富了审计定价的相关理论研究。     

Price Fairness in the Case of Green Products: Enterprises' Policies and Consumers' Perceptions

This study investigates the extent to which prices of ecological products are fair. In particular, it explores the gap that can exist between the pricing policies adopted by enterprises and the consumers' price expectations in terms of fairness. The existing academic literature on sustainable consumption neglects this question. Findings from a qualitative investigation combining a consumer study and enterprise case studies show that managers' behaviors vary. While some enterprises take into account consumers' expectations and purchasing power to propose a fair price based on the value of the green product, others continue to adopt a pricing policy that is exclusively based on profitability and competition. The authors draw some business and academic implications. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

The case for road pricing

The argument in principle for pricing the use of road space rests on firm intellectual foundations. The necessary technology is readily available. Public acceptance of the idea, with the concomitant need for investment in new roads, is subject to much confusion, reinforced by Nimbyism on one side and Swampyism on the other.     

Land use in a circular city: Some numerical results

In a previous paper (“Land Use in a Circular City”, Journal of Economic Theory, 1974), I considered efficient land use and travel patterns in a circular city consisting of a homogeneous economic activity and a network of radial and circumferential roads. My analysis assumed that under decentralized optimum conditions, the price of traveling circumferentially through a radian would increase with distance from the city center. Under this and a second pricing assumption, an optimum would involve either restricting inward trip penetration or providing travelers with an inner ring road. This paper provides numerical illustrations of the optimum when trip penetration is restricted. The results suggest that the underlying pricing assumptions are likely not valid.