Tolheffingen

Direct User Charging Introduction In this essay we would like to discuss an European transport issue. The last number of years we are seeing an revolutionary shift of cost bearing with the making of infrastructure. In the traditional concept it was normal that the government was paying the infrastructure with the incoming taxes. Nowadays we see a trend that the governments are charging road users directly for the use and making of the road infrastructure. This appears mainly two different ways: paying toll or direct user charging in congestion zones. The last one is a specific trend in big European city’s. This two manners are relatively new for the most European citizens, but though a manner applied more often every year. Thinking about this trend questions arise like: why are they doing this? What are the for and against? What do they want to achieve with this system? We will end this report with an conclusions, hopefully, answering all these questions. § 1: Congestion Charging Zone’s As people drive into a major city like: London, Stockholm, Trondheim or Rome people had to realize it wasn’t much fun anymore to drive in a major city. Traffic jams and a lot of waiting, waiting and waiting. As the problem grew city’s started to realize that this problem couldn’t last much longer anymore because the traffic was failing because of it’s own success. Experts say: “If the problem is not handled adequately, car traffic will increase by 7,5% coming years”. At peak times (during rush-hour) around 50.000 vehicles an hour are heading in or out of central London. That’s much more then the central infrastructure can handle: saturation point has been reached at the moment already. Realizing people wouldn’t let their car at home if you would ask them, city’s hit road users as hard as they could: in their wallet. People have to pay if they want to get into the busy city center. Expected was that people would chose a lot of alternative transport (busses, metro’s, trains and taxi’s). They were right: congestion went down with 30%. London, one of the leading city’s solving this problem, created a plan witch was to happen on the 17th of February 2001. An area of 22 square kilometers was set out and marked with a big C. This meant this area was part of the London Central Congestion Charging Zone. When you trespass this sign (Monday’s to Fridays from 7.00 -1830) with your motorized vehicle you will be charged £ 5,00. The planned revenue for this measure was £ 60.000.000,-. All the money collected with this measure are being used to improve London’s infrastructure and public transport. Reasons, according to London’s major, why this plan was introduced you will find below. It’s presented in seven main statements:  Reducing traffic congestion;  Making radical improvements on the London bus services;  Better integration of the National Rail system to London’s transport system;  Increasing the overall capacity of London’s transport system;  Improving journey times and making them more reliable;  Improving the distribution of goods and services;  Improving the accessibility of London’s transport systems. As far as we can overview the results of the taken measures, we can say it has been quite a success. Car movements has been reduced with 30%. Traffic delays have been falling from 2.3 min/km to 1.7 min/km. Taxi and bus movements have been grown by 20%. We can see people are choosing for alternative manners of transport. The traffic which necessarily has to go into the congestion zone will pay for it anyway. European city’s (planning to) using systems similar like this: Prague, Edinburgh, London, Trondheim, Rome and Stockholm
§ 2: Toll Motorways: conquering Europe The last decade we are seeing a European shift of financing the European infrastructure. More and more we are seeing citizens, unknown of the why’s, paying toll for using motorways. In the day’s of the ‘80s it was considered normal that people pay taxes and governments are paying the infrastructure with the received taxes. Nowadays you are still paying taxes, but the government is lesser willingly to pay for the infrastructure. We are seeing a shift from indirect user charging to direct user charging, that means users a paying and non-users are not. Toll roads now account for approximately 40% of the West-European motorway network Mainly in Southern Europe tolls are a significant form of financing. Eight European country’s are using a toll system: France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Austria, Norway and since a few months England (future plans in Germany). One of the most successful toll motorway network we can find in France. The motorways financed by the government is for a regional purpose. The big highway’s (Payage) are being build by a government controlled company called Cofiroute. This company invests in building roads and earning the costs back by asking tolls of their users. The system paid it success to it’s customers which can reach their destiny quicker, better and more reliable. The toll system used in Italy and Portugal is comparable to the one used in France. A different story like the French or Italian is the Spanish toll ways. In comparison to the other two the Spanish toll ways are totally privately funded and owned. These roadways co-exists with the network of free public expressways provided by the Spanish government. The size of the Spanish network is not comparable to the French because it is just under a third of it’s big neighbor. An important (exceptional) rule in the Spanish law is the limitation on a maximum concession period of only 50 years! A problem at the moment are the manners of tolling in Europe. All the country’s are using different manners of tolling. The technological ways for tolling are numerous but not one system is perfect. The system advised by the European Commission is the German MAUT system which is working on the Global Positioning System provided with the help of satellites. A big problem on the moment is that this system doesn’t work perfect yet. German plans for tolling on HGV vehicles are delayed till 2005 because of it’s system failure. Another problem is that European country’s are not making an European policy but a national policy. The globalization of the European market brings a lot of inter-European-national transport with it. When the system will start you will have to have five different boxes in your truck for five different country’s. You will receive five different bills witch you have to pay to five different country’s. This system brings a lot of protests with it. § 3: Advantages and disadvantages to these systems As we have spoken the two different way’s of direct user charging systems, we realize there are good things and bad things about them. In this paragraph we would like to sum up the good and the bad things about these two systems. Advantages:  Applying an Congestion Charging Zone reduces the number of personal cars in the congested area’s of the city.  Funds collected by these measure are used for alternative way’s for transport like busses, trains, metro’s. People are using these alternatives to escape on the Congestion Charge witch the have to pay if they use their cars.  There is more attention for environmental effects brought by the polluting cars. Also it is better for the healthiness of people living and working in the congested area’s.  The introduction of toll ways is another system where the user has to pay for the bad effects brought by the use of it. This makes people more aware of what they are doing. Disadvantages:  No standard is brought to the country’s and citizens of Europe. This leave’s no other option for the country’s then to introduce their own system. This has an destructive effect on the inter-European transport market. This brings new barriers on the EU transport-market.  Ethics. People are not fond of paying another tax. They don’t approve it but accept it. Research has proved that people are more willingly to pay for these measures if they know where the money is used for.  Introduction of these high technological complicated system are expensive are not payable for every city or every country. Making a toll-entry-gate is no option because it works like a bottle neck. Then your are shifting the problem earlier in the system. As we can see of the lists presented above there are a lot of advantages and disadvantages about direct user charging. Standardization seems to be the biggest objection at the moment for a form of a system of European Direct User Charging. § 4: Conclusion Direct user charging brings a lot of good things, and a les number of bad things. The most important reason why to continue these process is to make people aware of the congestion on the roads. If we want to continue our mobility we have to get rid of the people who aren’t necessarily in need of the road transport. That’s why you have to hit them hard: in their wallets. The most important reasons to continue are:  Better for the environment;  Good for the development of the European infrastructure;  Pay for the usage makes people more aware of what they are doing. The biggest disadvantage on this concept is the scale on witch the systems are implanted. If we continue to think on a national scale we are getting stuck in a few years if we have to apply an European scale. I also think that toll ways are a good initiative to enlarge the European transport infrastructure. Again we can see here that the user is paying for the usage and that’s more than fair in my eyes. People also have to realize that the trend of the last 50 years, increased mobility, can’t continue if we don’t build more roads or alternatives. The country’s don’t got the money, it’s time users are going to pay back for the years of usage.