ROAD PRICING: Juan de Dios Ortúzar. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Transcription

1 ROAD PRICING: An Impeccable Policy how can we sell it? Juan de Dios Ortúzar Department of Transport Engineering and Logistics Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

2 CONTENTS What is congestion? The need for road pricing Main criticisms Response to criticisms Towards a sustainable urban development strategy Can we sell road pricing better?

3 Traffic Engineering helps to understand this problem: the degree of saturation (x) of a road is the ratio between the sustained vehicle flow (q) circulating by it and its capacity (s); congestion is evident if x > 0.7; the problem becomes chaotic (as in many cities nowadays) starting from a degree of saturation of 0.9. Most obvious effect (cost) of congestion is increase in travel times and delays: however, each individual only perceives the effect over her own trips and is unaware of the effects over the rest of the travellers. What is congestion? The need for road pricing

4 Social and private costs of congestion Trip cost EVIDENT CONGESTION Social cost Private cost q 0 Vehicular flow (q) CONGESTION

5 Traffic Engineering helps to understand this problem: the degree of saturation (x) of a road is the ratio between the sustained vehicle flow (q) circulating by it and its capacity (s); congestion is evident if x > 0.7; the problem becomes chaotic (as in many cities nowadays) starting from a degree of saturation of 0.9. Most obvious effect (cost) of congestion is increase in travel times and delays: however, each individual only perceives the effect over her own trips and is unaware of the effects over the rest of the travellers. Besides, flows are composed of cars, bus and lorries one car is equal to one pcu and transports 1.25 passengers; one urban bus is equal to 2.5 pcu but moves over 40 passengers; one bus is roughly 12 times more efficient than a car in congestion terms (use of the scarce road space available) What is congestion? The need for road pricing

6 Downs-Mogridge Paradox Bus cost car cost in situation with project Car cost in initial situation Car cost C 1 C 1 C 0 C 0 bus cost Q B 0 Q A 0 Q B 1 Q A 1

7 In urban networks, road capacity is determined by junctions; for each access link in a junction we have: x = q λ s where λ is the proportion of green in the access link. This allows seeing that to reduce congestion (which increases with x), ) there are only three possibilities: improve network management (i.e. increase λ); but as λ = 1 for at grade junctions, only remain the following two; increase the capacity s; the common sense solution; reduce the vehicular flow q; that is, make some car users change time of travel, route or mode (demand d management); To reduce congestion The need for road pricing

8 Thus, internalising the costs incurred by individuals when taking decisions i is a necessary condition to advance in the solution of the congestion problem If perceived costs are adequately corrected by their externalities, travel behaviour will become more efficient from the social point of view better use of resources But as the distortions caused by external effects are not corrected spontaneously, the authority must intervene to rationalize the operation of the system, thus Congestion pricing or road pricing (RP), is nowadays recognised as a key instrument in controlling congestion; it can also play an important role in controlling atmospheric pollution and noise. The need for road pricing Main criticisms Response

9 Car drivers are reluctant to accept being charged for congesting: - people are willing to be charged for something they wish to acquire and not for something they wish to avoid (drivers feel as victims rather than culprits); - if charges are proportional to congestion levels, this may induce bad driving habits, increased stress and a higher likelihood of accidents. Road pricing will not stop people using their cars: - high inelasticity to charges due to sunk costs of owning and operating a car; - alternative modes do not provide good service quality or are simply inappropriate (carry loads or small kids). Technological and implementation issues are just too hard Road pricing is another form of taxation, unfair and regressive: - willingness-to-pay is not synonymous with trip importance and congestion is a more socially desirable form of rationing (use time rather than money); - only the rich could use their cars and residents of the priced zone would be affected inequitably. Main criticisms Response to criticisms

10 Thus, it would be necessary to win four general arguments before being able to obtan majority support for RP: that it is essential to take action to restrict current traffic flow levels; that t alternatives ti to road pricing i are either ineffective or insufficient; i that implementing RP is technically feasible and its operation effective, and; that it is possible to solve the preoccupations related with the equity of the project. Although the first two are now pretty well understood, winning strong support still requires a well thought and better designed marketing campaign and, most probably, bl a charismatic i champion (i.e. Ken Livingstone) Response to criticisms Towards a sustainable

11 The third argument can be viewed from several angles; for example, how can we translate an optimal value for the fare into a practical charge (i.e. the most appropriate to implement)? this depends on whether we just want to charge for congestion, or if we wish to incorporate other externalities; the latter is recommended from the point of view of defending the system. But there are also approximation problems: - the optimal fare is, by its nature (difference between social and private costs), different for different road sections and at different hours of the day; - for this reason, if we work on the basis of cordons (as is usual practice) and allow the fare only to vary at discrete intervals, we generate a need to approximate; - in fact, the most appropriate fare depends on how we define the area to be priced; evidence in the literature suggests that defining the area and choosing the most appropriate fare are totally interrelated problems; - designers have opted for very simple solutions in a search for acceptability, at the risk of loosing the chance of obtaining greater economic benefits. Response to criticisms Towards a sustainable

12 The fourth argument is highly complex, as it does not have a general response (depends on type of scheme implemented) - but if charge considers environmental issues (pollution, noise) as well as congestion, some problems are obviated and there is freedom to use revenues equitably; - and if there is fiscal neutrality (i.e. replacing road licence or gasoline tax), the arguments against RP diminish in importance considerably. To end this introduction, ti I wish to dwell a little more about the fiscal neutrality of the project: - not too long ago, the United Kingdom s Commission for Integrated Transport (integrating the Royal Automobile Club, the Confederation of British Industry and the Road Haulage Association), agreed to support and promote RP; - their condition was a legal framework reducing the current Road Licence in the amount that would be expected to get as RP revenues; I have proposed to do exactly the same in Chile Response to criticisms Towards a sustainable

13 A congested public good should be priced at marginal cost. Curiously, in many places this is already happening in the case of traditional services (i.e. water, electricity, telephones). We have adhered to a stick and carrot approach. The stick implies charging car drivers the marginal (social) cost of travelling, to have them taking travel decisions (mode, time- of-day and route) based on the real costs in the system. London s experience has been very good in this sense. The carrot consists in providing a decent, efficient and safe public transport system that can be continuously improved with the revenues of RP, including potential ti subsidies. Both elements are key components of a sustainable urban development strategy Towards a sustainable urban development strategy

14 An MSc student s thesis considered the problem of how could we sell RP better. For this we did: - a large literature review, conducted five focus groups, and a Delphi survey to 45 specialists, to find out the most important attributes that car users in Santiago would consider when thinking about the implementation of a road pricing scheme; - based on these attributes, we also conducted a stated choice (SC) survey to sample of Santiaguinos that worked in the CBD The attributes finally selected were: - the extension of the charging area; Can we sell road pricing better?

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16 An MSc student s thesis considered the problem of how could we sell RP better. For this we did: - a large literature review, conducted five focus groups, and a Delphi survey to 45 specialists, to find out the most important attributes that car users in Santiago would consider when thinking about the implementation of a road pricing scheme; - based on these attributes, we also conducted a stated choice (SC) survey to sample of Santiaguinos that worked in the CBD The attributes finally selected were: - the extension of the charging area; - the charging structure (when entering, leaving or circulating the area, when entering and leaving, and only when entering; in all cases once per day); - the period of the day when charging operates (AM peak, AM and PM peak, all day); - the fare levels (US$ 4, US$ 5.2 and US$ 6 per day; residents had a 90% discount); - the use of funds generated by the scheme (improve public transport, invest in roads and traffic management, and invest in cycle ways and green areas); - time savings (three levels based on distance from origin to destination and part of the city, current time and extension of priced area); values could not be below 30% of current time (London) or more than 25 min (focus groups). Can we sell road pricing better?

17 We ran two pilots prior to final survey; data helped improving survey design and have appropriate priors for the parameter values, as required by our efficient experimental design The final survey was taken face to face with the aid of laptops: individuals contacted (letters to managers of large firms and governmental institutions in CBD; had to travel by car at least 3 days/week and be at least 25); - computerised survey allowed us to achieve tailor-made designs, reduce data transcription problems and increase respondent s confidence; Prior to SC game people had to rank 4 measures to alleviate congestion (presented in randomised order); aim was to find out if there was correlation with responses to SC exercise: - improve public transport (increase reliability by building bus lanes, reduce Metro crowding, better information about vehicle arrivals but at a higher cost); - traffic cells scheme (as in Gothenburg); - road pricing (area licence scheme, public transport and emergency vehicles free); - parking policy (eliminate on-street free parking, build off street parking sites). Can we sell road pricing better?

18 Prior to SC questionnaire, we also instructed participants:

19 Both on relative mode efficiency, as above, but also on how do the various attributes of SC game interact with each other:

20 Example of one of 12 screens shown to respondents in SC:

21 The final section of the survey first asked questions to evaluate how effective the exercise had been: - did you identify with some of the scenarios (i.e. as, if that could happen to you)?; -did you consider changing g to public transport in some cases? (recall they were forced to choose one of the two scenarios at each screen); - did you disregard one or more of the attributes?; - did you attach higher importance to any single attribute when choosing?; Answers to the above questions revealed, for example, that approximately 15% of people considered changing mode at some scenarios; other answers helped us in detecting lexicographic respondents The final section also asked questions allowing us to classify respondents in socioeconomic and location terms: - gender, age, number of cars at home and income; - distance from home to nearest Metro station, and to nearest bus stop. Can we sell road pricing better?

22 During the survey (conducted by MSc student and four other rigorously trained 3 rd and 4 th year engineering students), it was observed that many people indeed rejected idea of RP: - because they would be charged for something which is now free without making any improvement to it, and; - because they simply thought the scheme would not work. Alternative 1 st preference 2 nd preference 3rd 4th Improve PT 79% 13% 5% 3% Road pricing 9% 33% 26% 29% Parking 8% 27% 39% 24% Cell system 3% 24% 28% 43% No preference 3% 3% 3% 3% Can we sell road pricing better?

23 Several classes of models were estimated with the SC data: - first, simple linear binary logit models to more complex and progressively better binary logit models including interactions between variables and allowance for systematic taste variations; to - highly complex and flexible mixed logit models allowing for random taste variations. - A new MSc student is currently re-analysing the data and will also incorporate the attitudinal questions and rankings in a hybrid choice modelling context with latent variables - In general, results are too difficult toshow (and to analyse), so I will just summarise some of our main findings: - in all models parameters obtained correct signs and sensible looking magnitudes; - a high negative value was associated with extending the charging area to Vespucio (the largest cordon), and also to have the charge operating all day; - as the size of the cordon increases, the fare should decrease (there was a positive and strong interaction here); Can we sell road pricing better?

24 More general conclusions of our survey in general, are: - information is key, both about the size and location of the charging area, but especially about the potential benefits of the scheme; - the latter is particularly important for current public transport users (which, in Chile are still the majority of travellers)l; - information must be differentiated by age, gender, income, zone of residence and accessibility to public transport; - people that understands the benefits of a road pricing scheme have a much higher rate of acceptance. - Finally, we also confirmed that it is of key importance in being able to sell road pricing to the community, that: - the authority manages to build a clear and transparent explanation about the use of funds, and; - that top priority is given to improving public transport. Many thanks! Can we sell road pricing better?