Roadpricing
As urban areas worldwide experience traffic increases, the undesired side effects such as congestion, CO2-emissions, noise and accidents increase. The use of road pricing has the potential to increase social welfare by encouraging a more efficient use of the transport infrastructure.
Traditionally, driving in cars has mostly been taxed indirectly by taxing buying and owning a car, or tolls on specific routes or passages. However, the negative side effects associated with cars are mainly associated with the use of the car and not the ownership.
Taxes on gasoline target using the car and the associated energy consumption and CO2 emissions. With road pricing it is possible to tax not only using the cars but also congestion as drivers are taxed according to how much, when and where the driving takes place – therefore this has long been suggested as a better solution.
However, so far there has also been concerns related to implementing road pricing, when it comes to e.g. technology, system costs, surveillance and distributional effects, and we are still waiting to see a wide use of large scale implemented systems.
Recent years’ technological progress has however reduced the technological concerns and the expected system costs of a road pricing system significantly making the call for road pricing even stronger.
At DTU Management, we study how road pricing systems can be designed and implemented and we evaluate the expected consequences. We study the effects on traffic, transport, congestion, welfare, and distributional effects, and we study how the use of road pricing interacts with other policy instruments.
DTU Management has long experience with research on road pricing and is involved in a national large-scale roadpricing experiment.
Please get in touch if you have ideas for research projects or need an expert opinion.
Traditionally, driving in cars has mostly been taxed indirectly by taxing buying and owning a car, or tolls on specific routes or passages. However, the negative side effects associated with cars are mainly associated with the use of the car and not the ownership.
Taxes on gasoline target using the car and the associated energy consumption and CO2 emissions. With road pricing it is possible to tax not only using the cars but also congestion as drivers are taxed according to how much, when and where the driving takes place – therefore this has long been suggested as a better solution.
However, so far there has also been concerns related to implementing road pricing, when it comes to e.g. technology, system costs, surveillance and distributional effects, and we are still waiting to see a wide use of large scale implemented systems.
Recent years’ technological progress has however reduced the technological concerns and the expected system costs of a road pricing system significantly making the call for road pricing even stronger.
At DTU Management, we study how road pricing systems can be designed and implemented and we evaluate the expected consequences. We study the effects on traffic, transport, congestion, welfare, and distributional effects, and we study how the use of road pricing interacts with other policy instruments.
DTU Management has long experience with research on road pricing and is involved in a national large-scale roadpricing experiment.
Please get in touch if you have ideas for research projects or need an expert opinion.
Contact
Ninette Pilegaard Deputy Head of Division, Head of Section Department of Technology, Management and Economics Phone: +45 45256554 nipi@dtu.dk