Road pricing is a generic term for charging for the use of roads using direct methods, charging the users of a specific section of the road network for its use. Examples include traditional methods using toll booths such as turnpikes and toll roads, as well as more modern schemes employing electronic toll collection such as the (2003) London congestion charge, Singapore's Electronic Road Pricing, the Trondheim toll scheme, the Highway 407 bypass of Toronto, Ontario and high-occupancy toll lanes (such as SR-91 in Orange County, California and Interstate 15 in San Diego, California). It is in contrast to indirect charges such as gas taxes, or other types of taxes. A road ascends a mountainside using hairpin bends in the French Alps. ... A high-speed toll booth on SR 417 near Orlando, Florida A toll gate on the Sayama bypass (Saitama prefectural road 397) in Japan A toll gate on the Dom Pedro I Highway near the city of Itatiba, Brazil A New Jersey Turnpike Toll Gate for Exit 8A in Monroe... Many ETC systems use transponders like this one to electronically debit the accounts of registered cars without their stopping Transponder used in some Chilean freeways Electronic toll collection (ETC), an adaptation of military identification friend or foe technology, aims to eliminate the delay on toll roads. ... The white-on-red C marks all entrances to the congestion charge zone. ... ERP gantry at North Bridge Road The Electronic Road Pricing (ERP, Simplified Chinese: 电子道路收费系统) scheme is an electronic toll collection scheme adopted in Singapore to manage traffic by road pricing, and as a usage-based taxation mechanism to complement the purchase-based Certificate of Entitlement system. ... Drivers in the Norwegian city of Trondheim have been living with a congestion charging system for ten years. ... This article or section should include material from 407 ETR International Highway 407 as part of the 400-series network Highway 407, officially called 407 ETR, is a pay-per-use freeway located in south-central Ontarios Greater Toronto Area. ... Template:Hide = Motto: Template:Unhide = Diversity Our Strength Image:Toronto, Ontario Location. ... A high-occupancy toll (HOT) is a toll enacted on single-occupant vehicles who wish to use lanes or entire roads that are designated for the use of high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs, also known as carpools). ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this articles infobox may require cleanup. ... Official website: http://www. ... Interstate 15 (abbreviated I-15) is the fourth longest north-south transcontinental interstate highway in the United States, traveling through the states of Montana, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California. ... It has been suggested that Downtown San Diego be merged into this article or section. ... A gasoline tax (also known as a gas tax, petrol tax, fuel tax or fuel duty) is a sales tax imposed on the sale of gasoline. ...

The aims of road pricing are several. The most obvious is financing: raising money to pay back the construction of the road or to build new facilities. This may become more important in the future if gasoline is replaced as a source of fuel for automobiles by hybrid vehicles or alternative fuel vehicles (such as fuel cells) which consume little or no petrol and thus don't generate petrol tax revenue. A second aim is demand management, by varying charges by time of day (sometimes called congestion pricing or value pricing), users can be discouraged from making trips during the peak times and encouraged to travel in the off-peak, thus balancing flows and reducing congestion loss. In the absence of pricing, individual drivers do not consider the congestion costs (amongst other externalities) they impose on others. Similarly, by varying charges by location (like the London congestion charge), travelers can be dissuaded from driving to a specific place or via a specific route. A third aim is to discourage driving altogether, which is often supported by environmentalists, though in this case raising general car taxation such as fuel duty might be more appropriate. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A fuel cell is an electrochemical device similar to a battery, but differing from the latter in that it is designed for continuous replenishment of the reactants consumed; i. ... In economics, an externality is the effect of a transaction between two parties on a third party who is not involved in the carrying out of that transaction. ... Bold textHello ...

A fourth aim, more applicable to rural areas, is to directly charge for any public bad that arises from use of a road, for example, charging more for use of roads that enable poaching, illegal logging, and even road accidents. This aim is shared by some schemes of pay at the pump automobile insurance, which may apply a higher charge near roads with more accidents. It is thought that these measures engage more people in watching and preventing these activities, reporting unsafe vehicles and impaired driving, as they increase road use price under these schemes, making these "everyone's problem". A public bad, in green economics, is a good that produces socially undesirable results. ... For other uses, see Poaching (disambiguation). ... Loggers on break, c. ... A car accident in Yate, near Bristol, England, in July 2004. ... Driving under the influence, drink driving, drunk driving, or drinking and driving is the act of operating a motor vehicle after having consumed alcohol (ethanol) or other drugs, to the degree that mental and motor skills are impaired. ...

Another important question is what is done with the revenue. Marginal cost pricing, which some economists favor, would often raise more money than is needed to pay for construction and maintenance of the road itself. The revenue could be used to offset gas taxes, to pay for public transport, or to build new infrastructure, among other uses. In economics and finance, marginal cost is the change in total cost that arises when the quantity produced (or purchased) changes by one unit. ... Skytrain Bangkok. ...

Criticisms

Opposition to road pricing, when coming from the broad political left is largely directed at perceptions of fairness. By charging for something that was once "free" it may be seen as unfair. The burden falls more heavily on the poor drivers than the rich. (Though this should be compared with the burden of other financing systems, such as the fuel tax, which is also regressive). New toll roads in a largely free system may be seen as punishing one area when others don't pay for roads. Proponents of pricing would counter the fairness or equity argument by stating that prices create choices, and choices are fair because people are not identical, sometimes people have high values of time (e.g when they are late for an appointment), sometimes they have lower values of time (e.g. when they are enjoying the drive). The proponents would thus suggest that making all drivers pay the same tax to receive the same service isn't fair if people aren't the same. Another argument is that, while road pricing may be unfair to some road users, the alternative, ie. congestion is unfair to all road users, since it wastes everyone's resources. The ultimate fairness of road pricing is only determined once the use of any net revenues is taken into account. In politics, left-wing, political left, leftism, or simply the left, are terms that refer (with no particular precision) to the segment of the political spectrum typically associated with any of several strains of socialism, social democracy, or liberalism (especially but not exclusively in the American sense of the word... Justice is a concept involving the fair and moral treatment of all persons, especially in law. ...

Conservative critics such as Steven Norris, on the other hand, say that "free" roads produce positive externalities that outweigh the opportunity cost of congestion, ie. that road pricing reduces the overall number of journeys, thus harming business and economic growth. In particular, Steven Norris argues that the cost of the congestion charge disproportionately hits low paid workers whose working hours start at night when public transport is not available and end when the congestion period is in force, indirectly hitting London's service economy. This article deals with conservatism as a political philosophy. ... Steven Norris Steven Norris is a British Conservative politician. ... An externality occurs in economics when a decision (for example, to pollute the atmosphere) causes costs or benefits to individuals or groups other than the person making the decision. ... Opportunity cost is a term used in economics to mean the cost of something in terms of an opportunity forgone (and the benefits that could be received from that opportunity), or the most valuable forgone alternative. ...

Motoring interest groups see road pricing as an additional financial burden on already allegedly over-taxed car owners. Many are not opposed to road tolls as such, but wish to see them as a replacement for fuel tax rather than an additional charge. Motoring clubs operate across the globe offering a variety of services to members. ...

Some groups of libertarian inclination, such as the Association of British Drivers, criticize road pricing on the basis of individual rights. They argue that freedom of movement is a fundamental right that should not be infringed through financial barriers, and sometimes compare the practice to highwaymen. Note that most libertarians in general however favour transferral of roads into private ownership, which is likely to result in tolls for individual roads, set on a profit-maximising rather than an economic welfare-maximising basis, which in many cases is likely to lead to a higher toll. See also Libertarianism and Libertarian Party Libertarian,is a term for person who has made a conscious and principled commitment, evidenced by a statement or Pledge, to forswear violating others rights and usually living in voluntary communities: thus in law no longer subject to government supervision. ... The Association of British Drivers, founded in 1992, is a British motorists advocacy group. ... Individual rights is a legal term referring to what one is allowed to do and what can be done to an individual. ... Freedom of movement is a human rights concept which is respected in the constitutions of numerous Western states. ... Folk image of a mounted highwayman This page is about the criminal occupation of highwayman, for groups of that name, see The Highwaymen. ... A private road is a road owned and maintained by a private individual, organization, or company rather than by a government. ...

European application

Various trials have taken place in British cities - the City of Cambridge in the UK, for example, had experimented with congestion charging as far back as 1993.[1]

Since years all italian highways can be used on the base of a toll payment, also by electronic TELEPASS system. Highway in Pennsylvania, USA The Pan-American Highway, in the Peruvian town of Máncora, where it serves as the main street. ... Telepass is the brand name for an electronic toll collection system used to collect toll (pedaggio) on motorways (autostrade) in Italy operated by Autostrade per lItalia S.p. ...

Facing rising levels of congestion, European governments are giving serious consideration to nationwide road pricing schemes which would exploit the new Galileo satellite positioning system. Every vehicle would have to contain a satellite tracking device which would determine which roads were being driven along, for how far and at what time of day. This information would then be sent to a central computer system. The Galileo positioning system is a proposed satellite navigation system, to be built by the European Union (EU) as an alternative to the US military-controlled Global Positioning System and the Russian GLONASS. The system should be operational by 2010, two years later than originally anticipated. ...

Schemes for charging trucks (lorries) in Germany by the company Toll Collect, and Austria are already underway. Under the German scheme, which went live on 1st January 2005, lorries pay between €0.09 and €0.14 per kilometre depending on their emission levels and number of axles. The expensive scheme, combining satellite technology with other technologies, suffered numerous delays before implementation, whilst a scheme using much simpler technology in Austria was up and running in 2004. In the UK, the Labour government announced in July 2005 that the proposed UK lorry road user charging scheme would not go ahead. Toll Collect GmbH is a German company that has developed and is running the toll billing system for trucks on German motorways. ... The Labour Party has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, the main democratic socialist [1] political party in the United Kingdom. ...

Extensive studies are being done on introducing a scheme for all UK vehicles, with an aim to implementation at the earliest around 2013. In October 2005 the UK government suggested they explore "piggy-backing" road pricing on private sector technologies, such as pay-as-you-go insurance (also known as Pay As You Drive PAYD), thus avoiding a large-scale public sector procurement exercise. If introduced, this scheme would likely see a charge being levied per kilometre depending on the time of day, the road being driven along, and perhaps the type of vehicle. For example, a large car driving along the western section of the M25 in rush hour would pay a high charge; a small car driving along a rural lane would pay a much lower charge. The very highest charges would be likely in the most congested urban areas. It is expected that rural motorists would benefit the most from such a scheme, perhaps by paying less through road pricing than they do at present through petrol and car taxes, whereas urban motorists would pay much more than they presently do. However, this is highly dependent on whether such a scheme would be designed to be either revenue neutral or congestion neutral. A revenue neutral scheme would replace (at least in part) petrol and vehicle taxes, and would be such that Treasury revenue under the new scheme would equal the revenue from current taxes. A congestion neutral scheme would be designed so that growth in congestion levels would stop as a result of the new charges; the latter scheme would require significantly higher (and increasingly higher) charges than the revenue neutral scheme and so would be unpopular with the UK's 30 million motorists. The carbon emission consequence of moving from fuel duty to a charge per mile has been raised as a concern by some environmentalists, as has any diversionary response from heavily trafficked (and hence more expensive) roads. The UK government announced funding for road pricing research in 7 local areas in November 2005. 2013 (MMXIII) will be a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... PAYD (or Pay As You Drive) is a method of motor insurance whereby insurance premiums are dependant upon vehicle usage, particularly distance travelled. ... The M25 motorway looking south between junctions 14 and 15, near Heathrow Airport. ... The new eastern entrance to HM Treasury HM Treasury (Her/His Majestys Treasury) is the United Kingdom government department responsible for and putting into effect the UK Governments financial and economic policy. ...

It should also be noted that the current government did not originally float the idea of road user pricing for all UK vehicles; the previous Conservative government were also studying the idea in the 1980s, though principally considering tolling to pay for the construction of motorways rather than to control congestion. Even back in the early 1960s, the Smeed Report considered how to implement congestion charging. Any governing party will generally find that congestion is unavoidable without some form of price restraint being applied in the future. The Conservative Party (officially the Conservative & Unionist Party) is currently the second largest political party in the United Kingdom in terms of sitting Members of Parliament (MPs), and the largest in terms of public membership. ...

See also

• Singapore Area Licensing Scheme
• Electronic Road Pricing
• Electronic toll collection
• London congestion charge
• Stockholm congestion tax
• Transport economics
• Urban economics
• Pricing
• List of economics topics

The Singapore Area Licensing Scheme, introduced in 1975, charged drivers entering downtown Singapore, and thereby aimed to manage vehicle traffic. ... ERP gantry at North Bridge Road The Electronic Road Pricing (ERP, Simplified Chinese: 电子道路收费系统) scheme is an electronic toll collection scheme adopted in Singapore to manage traffic by road pricing, and as a usage-based taxation mechanism to complement the purchase-based Certificate of Entitlement system. ... Many ETC systems use transponders like this one to electronically debit the accounts of registered cars without their stopping Transponder used in some Chilean freeways Electronic toll collection (ETC), an adaptation of military identification friend or foe technology, aims to eliminate the delay on toll roads. ... The white-on-red C marks all entrances to the congestion charge zone. ... The Stockholm congestion tax or The Stockholm Trials (in Swedish: Trängselskatt i Stockholm or Stockholmsförsöket) is a traffic congestion and environmental tax that will be imposed on most vehicles in Stockholm, Sweden during a trial period between January 3, 2006 and July 31, 2006. ... Transport economics is a cross-disciplinary study linking civil engineering and economics. ... Urban Economics is a branch of Microeconomics that studies the location of households and firms. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... This aims to be a complete list of the articles on economics. ...

External links

• Road pricing case studies
• Combating Gridlock - Study of Deloitte Research on Congestion Charging
• National Alliance Against Tolls (Campaign against UK road pricing plans)