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MobilityCoins are a tradable mobility credit (TMC) scheme variant. TMC schemes are a cap-and-trade scheme for managing mobility that are designed to limit negative externalities, e.g., congestion, of traffic. Next to having link-specific or origin–destination-specific charges for cars as in the common TMC scheme, the MobilityCoin scheme’s distinctive elements are accommodating link-specific and origin-and-destination-specific charges and incentives for all modes of transport as well as being considered a mobility currency that can be earned, saved, and spent in multiple time periods. These distinctive features of the MobilityCoin scheme does not alter the core behavioral mechanism of TMC schemes of increasing car travel costs, but these features interfere with the credit market in terms of market volume and market price that ultimately affects traffic outcomes, e.g., an uncontrolled market volume increase can lower the market price that in turns increases the attractiveness of using the car. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model of multimodal macroscopic network flows and a MobilityCoin market to investigate the impacts of charges, incentives, and multi-period budgets. The model is implemented as a single-day model with an integration of sensitivity for multi-period budgets to study how the outcomes in the transportation system change with charges, incentives, and multi-period budgets. Further, we discuss implications for the policy design of MobilityCoins schemes.

This paper explores U.S. public opinion about raising new federal transportation revenues, using the results from a national, random-digit-dial phone survey that was conducted for 7 years, from 2010 to 2016. The annual surveys tested support for seven versions of a higher federal gasoline tax and two versions of a hypothetical mileage fee. We used both univariate and multivariate analysis to look at how support levels vary according to the specific features of a transportation tax, respondent characteristics, and time. The analysis shows that support for the taxes is tightly linked to the specifics of a tax proposal. For example, far fewer people supported a flat-rate mileage fee for general transportation purposes than supported a gasoline tax rate increases with the revenues dedicated to improving maintenance or safety. The population subgroups most likely to consistently support transportation taxes include young people, Democrats, drivers of fuel-efficient vehicles, and respondents who wanted to see government improve safety, expand transit, and improve maintenance. However, the multivariate analysis shows little variation among subgroups with respect to support for the least and most popular taxes. Finally, support for raising transportation revenue has increased modestly since 2010.

This paper considers how the implementation of a tradable credit scheme (TCS) may be used to reduce road traffic and to contribute to the formation of liveable cities and global climate change commitments. The concept of applying TCS to individual road transport is familiar to transport researchers as a measure to regulate congestion and reduce transport-related emissions. Yet, it is not a strategy currently being considered by policy makers in the UK, despite the electrification of the road vehicle fleet and the associated loss of tax revenue presenting a rare opportunity to alter the economic instruments, which apply to road traffic. We consider how transport researchers can capitalise on this unique moment in transport history to shape transport policy. Our study uses qualitative methods, including a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with transport stakeholders and experts, in addition to a literature review and document analysis. Data analysis is inductive, permitting the formation of new ideas about the potential benefits of TCS and the barriers to the application of TCS to real-world policy. Building upon the results of TCS experiments and the results of our analysis, we propose a novel potential form of TCS combined with road pricing to maintain government revenue, which incentivises road users to decrease road vehicle kilometres travelled and reduce pollution and congestion. The proposal contributes to the discussion on the governance of road transport and taxation.

For the use of the national highway network of Lithuania, freight vehicles pay a fee of a fixed amount using the system of purchasing electronic vignettes (hereinafter referred to as e. vignettes). The tax is paid for a certain period (day, week, month, or year) regardless of the distance traveled by vehicles. Such a taxation model does not value the “polluter pays” principle enshrined in EU legislation and does not allow covering the damage caused by freight vehicles to the road infrastructure. Road maintenance and development program financing law no. VIII-2032 by the law on the amendment of articles 2, 6, 9 and appendices 2, 5, VĮ Lithuanian Road Directorate until 2023 must develop and implement an electronic road toll system that should replace the currently used e. vignettes. The article presents the currently tolled road network of Lithuania, the financial impact on the companies providing transportation services after the introduction of the electronic road toll system. The road toll systems operating in European countries and Lithuania and their operating technologies, marginal tariffs are analyzed, and a methodology is proposed, based on which it would be possible to fill in the list of currently tolled roads. A company providing cargo transportation services has been selected, and it has been determined how the amount of paid taxes will change after the implementation of the electronic road toll system on Lithuanian roads. It has been determined that after the introduction of EKRS for companies providing transportation services that carry out long-distance transport in Lithuania, the amount of taxes paid for using state roads will increase significantly. Article in Lithuanian. Elektroninė kelių rinkliavos sistema ir jos diegimas Lietuvos automobilių keliuose Santrauka Už naudojimąsi Lietuvos valstybinės reikšmės magistralinių kelių tinklu krovininės transporto priemonės moka nustatyto dydžio mokestį naudodamos elektroninių vinječių (toliau – e. vinječių) įsigijimo sistemą. Mokestis yra mokamas už tam tikrą laikotarpį (parą, savaitę, mėnesį ar metus) neatsižvelgiant į transporto priemonių nuvažiuotą atstumą. Toks apmokestinimo modelis neįvertina ES teisės aktuose įtvirtinto principo „teršėjas moka“ ir neleidžia padengti krovininių transporto priemonių padarytos žalos kelių infrastruktūrai. Kelių priežiūros ir plėtros programos finansavimo įstatymo Nr. VIII-2032 2, 6, 9 straipsnių ir 2, 5 priedų pakeitimo įstatymu VĮ Lietuvos automobilių kelių direkcija iki 2023 m. turi sukurti ir įdiegti elektroninę kelių rinkliavos sistemą, kuri turėtų pakeisti šiuo metu naudojamas e. vinjetes. Straipsnyje pateikiamas dabar apmokestinamas Lietuvos automobilių kelių tinklas, finansinis poveikis transportavimo paslaugas teikiančioms įmonėms, įdiegus elektroninę kelių rinkliavos sistemą. Analizuojamos Europos šalyse ir Lietuvoje veikiančios kelių rinkliavos sistemos ir jų veikimo technologijos, ribiniai tarifai, pasiūlyta metodika, kurios pagrindu būtų galima pildyti dabar apmokestinamų kelių sąrašą. Pasirinkta krovinių pervežimo paslaugas teikianti įmonė ir nustatyta, kaip pasikeis sumokamų mokesčių dydis įgyvendinus elektroninę kelių rinkliavos sistemą Lietuvos automobilių keliuose. Nustatyta, jog įdiegus EKRS transportavimo paslaugas teikiančioms įmonėms, pervežimus atliekančioms dideliais atstumas Lietuvoje, sumokamų mokesčių dydis už naudojimąsi valstybinės reikšmės keliais itin išaugs. Reikšminiai žodžiai: e. vinjetė, elektroninė kelių rinkliava, kelių naudotojo mokestis, Kelių priežiūros ir plėtros programa.

The call for a congestion charge is getting louder and more frequent in many countries as major metropolitan areas experience increasing levels of road congestion. This is often accompanied by a recognition that governments need to find new sources of revenue to maintain existing road networks and to invest in new transport infrastructure. Although reform of road pricing is almost certain to occur at some time in the future in a number of countries, a key challenge is in selling the idea to the community of road users as well as a whole raft of interest groups that influence the views of society and politicians. Simply announcing a need for a congestion charge (often misleadingly called a tax) does little to progress the reform agenda. What is required is a carefully structured demonstration of what might be done to progressively introduce adjustments in road user charges that are seen as reducing the costs to motorists while ensuring no loss of revenue to government. In this paper we show, in the context of Sydney (Australia), that this can be achieved by the reform of registration fees in the presence of a distance-based charging regime that can deliver financial gains to motorists, with prospects of revenue growth to the State Treasury.

The aim of this paper is to model the impacts of competition between cities on both the optimal welfare generating tolls and upon longer-term decisions such as business and residential location choices. The research uses a dynamic land use transport interaction model of two neighbouring cities and analyses the impacts by setting up a game between the two cities to maximise the welfare of their own residents. The work builds on our earlier research which studied competition in a small network using a static equilibrium approach for private car traffic without accounting for the land use responses to the change in accessibility. This paper extends the earlier work by setting up a dynamic model which includes active modes of travel and the more usual car and public transport in a realistic twin city setting and assesses the longer term relocation responses. This paper firstly sets out the competition between two hypothetical identical cities i.e. the symmetric case ; and then sets out the real world asymmetric case in which the cities are of different size representative of Leeds and Bradford in the UK but equally applicable elsewhere too. We found that the level of interaction between the two cities is a key determinant to the optimal tolls and welfare gains. Our findings show that the competition between cities could lead to a Nash Tra p at which both cities are worse off in terms of welfare gains. On the other hand, we found that cities, if regulated, would gain in terms of welfare and yet charge only half the toll compared with tolls under competition. We then show that the effect of competition increases with increased interaction between cities. In terms of residential location, cities with higher charges benefit from an increase in residents, though as with other studies, the relative change in population in response to cordon charging is small. The policy implications are threefold—(i) while there is an incentive to cooperate at local authority level, this is not achieved due to competition; (ii) where cities compete they may fall into a Nash Trap where both cities will be worse off compared to the regulated solution; and (iii) regulation is recommended when there is a strong interaction between the cities but that the benefits of regulation decrease as interaction between cities decreases and the impact of competition is lessened.

Urban road user charging offers the potential to achieve significant improvements in urban transport, but is notoriously difficult to implement. Cities need guidance on the range of factors to be considered in planning and implementing such schemes. This paper summarises the results of a 3 year programme which has collated evidence on the issues of most concern to cities. A state of the art report has provided evidence on 14 themes, ranging from objectives and design to implementation and evaluation. A set of 16 case studies has reviewed experience in design and implementation across Europe. The paper summarises their findings, provides references to more detailed information, presents the resulting policy recommendations to European, national and local government, and outlines the areas in which further research is needed.

This paper proposes an innovative approach for designing a road user charging scheme to meet multiple policy objectives. Three practical features are integrated into the design methodology including (i) cordon formation, (ii) a set of design constraints, and (iii) multiple objectives of the scheme. The methods also consider possible responses of road travellers to the charging scheme. Two methods based on genetic algorithms (GA) are developed for optimising a charging cordon scheme with constraints and with multiple objectives. The dynamic self-adaptive penalty GA and Non-dominated Sorting GA II (NSGA-II) are applied to the constrained design and multi-objective design respectively. The objective functions or constraints considered include social welfare improvement, revenue generation, and distributional equity impact. A case study of the City of Edinburgh is presented and common characteristics of charging cordon designs which perform well against the three objectives are discussed.

We study the impact of car user taxes on vehicle quality and demand for kilometres. First, holding car prices fixed, we find that a higher fuel tax leads households to choose cars of better fuel efficiency, provided that the demand for car use is inelastic. Surprisingly, a higher kilometre tax reduces the demand for fuel efficiency. Next, we study how car prices react to the tax changes. Fuel taxes make owning very fuel-efficient cars more expensive, while reducing prices of cars of low fuel efficiency. Both fuel taxes and kilometre charges imply lower prices for large and powerful cars.

The objective of this paper is to ease the planning of new toll projects by providing estimates of operating costs, and to help us make better informed decisions about the design of toll collection systems. To do so we use panel data for Norwegian toll companies to estimate average cost functions. The main results can be summarised as follows. We provide evidence of very important unexploited economies of scale. The estimated cost curves are very steep for traffic levels below the sample mean, and become almost entirely flat over a wide range above the sample mean. A higher share of vehicles using on board units will significantly reduce average costs. Competitive tendering will significantly reduce average operating costs by as much as 25%. Our results also suggest that increased number of lanes, higher debt and passenger charging will increase average operating costs whereas average operating costs are lower for toll cordons compared with other projects. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]