London Road Pricing Study
The Economist reported in November that a $4.8 million, three year road-pricing study on reducing traffic in London was delivered dead-on-arrival to the British Dept. of Transport. The study looked at six systems for charging motorists entering concentrically-drawn city zones. All were based on cars equipped with electronically-readable devices. Depending on the extent of the pricing system and the fees it charged, the study found that car travel in London's central district could be cut by nearly 30%. Transport ministers pointed to technical difficulties in implementing such a system in as complex an environment as London, and said they preferred to test road-pricing schemes on a smaller scale first. Government critics and proponents of pricing, who now span the British political spectrum, pointed out that there were no firm plans to establish such trials, and that fear of pricing was political, not technical. The Economist, which favors road pricing, argued that there is little evidence that road pricing would be any more unpopular with motorists than alternative methods of restraint, such as restricting parking and turning centers of cities into pedestrian-only areas. Another study by the U.K. Transport Research Laboratory examined the likely impact of a combination of transportation measures in five British cities. It concluded that boosting parking charges and restricting parking supply could reduce traffic by up to 30%, compared with only a 3% drop if public transit is improved with no changes on the roads.
