Congestion charges and the Integrated Transport White Paper
The Commission on Integrated Transport, established in the 1998 Integrated Transport White Paper “to provide independent advice to Government on the implementation of integrated transport policy”, provides a succinct summary of the need for congestion charges.
Primarily, the fact that UK towns and cities were built before the car was invented means there is increasingly less space for the provision of more roads or parking spaces within them.
Car ownership has continued to grow rapidly with approximately 71% of households with access to a car; ownership of two or more cars also rose from one in six households in 1986 to one in four in 1999 One of the main reasons for this increase in car ownership has been due to the fact that the relative cost of owning and driving a car is getting cheaper The Government has estimated that costs will fall a further 20% over the next 10 years A corollary of this trend is the increase in public transport fares. The rest of Europe invests more subsides in public transport networks than here in the UK, where subsidies for public transport have been in decline for over a decade. Recent high profile disasters, such as Clapham Junction, have highlighted the shortcomings in this policy and a massive investment programme consisting of several billion pounds has been initiated to improve the railway network infrastructure.
Additionally, motorists in the UK use their cars more, and drive further, than their European counterparts. The UK has seen the fifth highest growth in car modal share - increasing by 6.8% between 1980 and 1998, compared to the European average of 5.3, even though there has been a lower than average increase in car ownership (CfIT, 2004). The motorist in the UK spends an average of 216 hours a year in their cars, an increase of 235% compared to time spent in cars in 1976. Commuting distances are increasing, whilst the “school run” is creating a phenomenon by itself and has been estimated to account for a fifth of the total number of cars on the road at peak times. An RAC Foundation study showed that just to keep traffic congestion at current levels would require a five-fold increase in what was being spent on road building today, or, alternatively, a rise in fuel duty to five times the current level, something which would definitely not be palatable to a (driving) population already having to pay amongst the highest levels of fuel duty in the world. Also, large road building programmes are unpopular with the public on environmental grounds - there were widespread protests and demonstrations during the last Conservative government’s road building programme. It is also questionable that it actually achieves the desired target. As new roads are built traffic levels quickly grow to fill the extra capacity - the M25 is a classic example.
The logic behind congestion charge relates to the fact that roads are virtually the only public utility that is free at the point of use. Customers pay a higher tariff if they use their phones at peak times, the same goes for electricity. Railways, planes, buses and ferries manage demand by price and by how busy the services are. We all pay higher fares to travel on trains during peak hours and we pay a higher price for our ferry crossing during the summer holidays. Why should roads be any different?
Schmoker et al, (2003) identified that the transport demand in most major cities around the world can only be met with a high-quality public transport system. There were many requirements on bus, rail, underground and tram systems with reliability and efficiency as the key factors. The service operating hours and the size of the network are often extended in order to serve needs better. Further, most metropolitan areas are trying to provide more incentives for citizens to leave the car at home and use the local transit systems instead. A public transport system makes economical sense if it is well used. Most urban areas with a high car-dependency face at least three major problems; safety, congestion, and pollution (noise and air pollution, land separation, etc.). It is generally recognised that to decrease car usage and to increase public transport usage a stick & carrot approach is needed. The London congestion-charging scheme is cited as an example of one such policy measure since all revenues collected by the scheme are put into the improvement of bus and underground services (Schmocker, Bell and Lam 2003). In a simulated study of eight English towns, Santos (2004) concluded that cordon tolls performed relatively well. In assessing the distributional effects and environmental impacts Santos found that distributional effects vary across towns, with positive environmental impacts in all cases.
The Government published the Integrated Transport White Paper (ITWP) in 1998 in response to an obvious growth in car ownership and use in the UK, and associated concerns with traffic levels, longer journey times and vehicle emissions. The White Paper on Integrated Transport set out a fully integrated policy to tackle the “twin pillars” of congestion and pollution. Since the publication of the ITWP, congestion has emerged as a more salient concern, while a combination of increasing public dissatisfaction over progress on transport, a number of political shocks (a national fuel duty protest, in particular) and institutional change have combined to effect an apparent shift away from the original “joined-up” philosophy. It is argued that the Government is now focusing on investing in transport infrastructure and has been slow to promote policies to manage demand for road use such as congestion charging. The short-lived marriage of transport and environmental policy is facing a stern test. Although, local air pollution has been falling due to improved engine technology, it is argued that CO2 emissions from road traffic will increase in the future, jeopardising the UK’s ability to hit its climate change targets. Begg and Gray, (2004) concluded that greater integration of policy is required (possibly through a Ministerial Committee, but not through further departmental restructuring), while the introduction of a national road charging scheme would reduce CO2 and further reduce local air pollution (Begg and Gray, 2004).
The average travel time per person has remained constant at about an hour a day for at least the past 30 years, over which period average distance travelled has increased by over 50%. The average number of trips per person has also held steady, at 1000 per year. The mathematical deduction is that the growth in travel has taken the form of longer journeys at higher average speeds. Most of the intended investment in the UK Government’s Ten Year Transport Plan has the effect of increasing average speed. This will increase distances travelled within constant average travel time, will result in increased environmental detriments, and is not likely to have a perceptible impact on congestion. Congestion charging could reduce distances travelled, but raises an issue of equity. Metz (2004) discusses some of the approaches that could increase transport system efficiency without increasing average speed.
In work undertaken for the Commission for Integrated Transport, an independent body advising the Government on integrated transport policy, it was demonstrated that a national road user charging system could be developed that would make more efficient use of road space. The system could, in principle, charge motorists on a distance basis for every part of the road system, with charges varying by time of day and level of congestion, avoiding the issue of diversion of traffic onto unsuitable roads that would arise if charges only applied to the motorway system. This ‘peak-pricing’ mirrors the way we pay for other utilities such as telephone and electricity. The system could be “revenue-neutral” such that the funds raised through the charges are balanced by reductions in vehicle excise duty and/or fuel tax. Alternatively, subject to Treasury agreement, variants could hypothecate some of the funding to transport improvements. The system could bring benefits to a large number of low-mileage drivers and rural residents who depend on their cars but impose little on others because they tend to drive in non-congested conditions. It would encourage drivers in congested conditions to reconsider whether their journey is necessary, whether it could be made by another mode or at a less congested time of day. Copley and Dodgson (2004) describe the findings from their research work which highlights the technical, political and practical issues, and provides further insights into the impacts of such a scheme.
Santos and Rojey (2004) highlight how road pricing can be regressive, progressive or neutral, which refutes the generalised idea that road pricing is always regressive. The potential distributional impacts of a road pricing scheme were assessed in three English towns. Santos and Rojey (2004) found that impacts are town specific and depend on where people live, where people work and what mode of transport they use to go to work. Initial impacts may be progressive even before any compensation scheme for losers is taken into account. When the situation before the scheme is implemented is such that majority of drivers entering the area where the scheme would operate come from households with incomes above the average, it can be expected that, once the scheme is implemented, these drivers coming from rich households will continue to cross the cordon and will be prepared to pay the charge. In such a case the overall effect will be that on average, rich people will pay the toll and poor people will not.
Whilst there appears to be an obvious need for policy intervention and the implementation of congestion charging scheme in urban areas affected by the problems of increasing traffic and deteriorating environmental, social and health quality, what are the possible socio-economic impacts of congestion charging? One often quoted fear is that businesses will suffer as a result of increased costs and will relocate outside the charging zone areas. There is some evidence to support this perspective with certain companies refusing to do deliveries inside London’s charge zone, forcing clients to travel to a central depot outside central London. Dunse et al. (2002) presented a paper which essentially re-appraised intra-urban rent model. Alonso (1964) had proposed a model of declining rent gradient from the central business district (CBD). How could a system of congestion charging affect the property market and Alonso’s model? Ostensibly, the biggest fear is that property prices just outside the congestion charge area will heavily. Dunse et al. (2002), however, present evidence which whilst supporting the hypothesis that the rent gradient from the CBD for a large city is still downward sloping, albeit very shallow, suggests that proximity to motorway junctions is of more significance. This analysis therefore supports the hypothesis of a multi-nodal rent surface. Proximity to a motorway junction is the most important locational variable with a much steeper and negative gradient than that to the CBD albeit over a shorter distance. These results imply that the draw of the CBD in terms of agglomeration economies and its accessibility to labour for a city the size of Glasgow still remain but its attractions are very much denuded with the development of a national motorway network. The fact that there has been no dramatic fall in London’s property market since the introduction of congestion charging would concur with the central argument of Dunse et al. (2002). One reason to explain the limited impact on property is the fact that people living just outside the charging zone in London are already likely to have residents parking, so other cars will not be able to park nearby. As they are close to the charging zone, they will have easier and faster access to it with or without their cars.
This study will examine the issue of congestion charging, and its possible impacts, upon Glasgow City Centre. There are some 2.1 million cars registered in Scotland, with 160,000 owned by Glasgow residents. For the UK as a whole, there are 32 million legal drivers with approximately 25 million vehicles on UK roads. There is a problem with congestion in Glasgow despite the fact that car ownership in Glasgow is only a mere 8% of Scotland’s total. One of the main consequences of this has been Glasgow’s declining air quality due to the high levels of pollution from these vehicles. In January 2002, Glasgow City declared itself an Air Quality Management Area.
This meant that Government set Objectives for safe pollution levels had been exceeded. To date, no action has been taken to rectify this situation and the air pollution levels remain high. Congestion charging could therefore be a possible policy measure for reducing the number of cars entering Glasgow’s City centre.
Tags: car ownership, congestion charges, integrated transport, parking spaces, public transport fares, public transport networks, towns and cities, transport policy
