road pricing

A US GAO review of some 41 road pricing projects sponsored by some 19 tollers around the US finds they have produced some useful benefits in reducing congestion but suggests various 'equity concerns' may hamper them increasingly in the future. The report is most useful as a listing of the projects and their various characteristics.

Jack Opiola of D'Artagnan Consulting LLP says that our report on China's discussion of congestion pricing got some of the history wrong in its references to innovations in Hong Kong and Singapore. Now a northern Virginia based toll consultant Opiola worked in Asia.

Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) which runs an extensive electronic toll system in the island state is offering the option of cardfree tolling for the first time November 5.

A Massachusetts Transportation Finance Commission appointed by the legislature has recommended greater reliance on toll financing, serious consideration of investor toll concessions or PPPs, and a move to statewide road pricing. It says the gas tax is a crude proxy for road pricing and that the dramatic advances in toll collection technology will make advanced pricing or road use charges (RUCs) more efficient and fair.