On interurban road pricing schemes and the impacts of traffic diversion on road safety in Germany: Empirical findings and implications

Recently, traffic diversion effects induced by tolling have increasingly been attracting attention, since interurban road charging schemes are becoming more widespread in Europe. However, less attention has been paid to unintended spillover effects concerning negative road safety outcomes, caused by traffic shifts to non-tolled adjacent secondary roads of inferior quality. This study introduces to the specifics of existing road pricing schemes in Europe, clarifies the characteristics of the German toll system and explores the relationship between toll implementation and road safety outcomes using regional German panel data for the period 2000-2010. To this end, we test different specifications using accident data, while controlling for transport-related and socioeconomic covariates. We find that the implementation of the heavy goods vehicle toll in 2005 has a negative impact on accident rates with damage to persons during our sample period. This finding is a valuable insight for policy makers, since the existence of a relationship between tolls, traffic diversion and road safety has important policy implications regarding the determination of optimal welfare-enhancing tolls

Pay as You Go: A Generic Crypto Tolling Architecture

The imminent pervasive adoption of vehicular communication, based on dedicated short-range technology (ETSI ITS G5 or IEEE WAVE), 5G, or both, will foster a richer service ecosystem for vehicular applications. The appearance of new cryptography based solutions envisaging digital identity and currency exchange are set to stem new approaches for existing and future challenges. This paper presents a novel tolling architecture that harnesses the availability of 5G C-V2X connectivity for open road tolling using smartphones, IOTA as the digital currency and Hyperledger Indy for identity validation. An experimental feasibility analysis is used to validate the proposed architecture for secure, private and convenient electronic toll payment

Benets of tight coupled architectures for the integration of GNSS receiver and Vanet transceiver

Vehicular adhoc networks (VANETs) are one emerging type of networks that will enable a broad range of applications such as public safety, traffic management, traveler information support and entertain ment. Whether wireless access may be asynchronous or synchronous (respectively as in the upcoming IEEE 8021.11p standard or in some alternative emerging solutions), a synchronization among nodes is required. Moreover, the information on position is needed to let vehicular services work and to correctly forward the messages. As a result, timing and positioning are a strong prerequisite of VANETs. Also the diffusion of enhanced GNSS Navigators paves the way to the integration between GNSS receivers and VANET transceiv ers. This position paper presents an analysis on potential benefits coming from a tightcoupling between the two: the dissertation is meant to show to what extent Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) services could benefit from the proposed architectur

Motorways, tolls and road safety.Evidence from European Panel Data.

The use of tolls is being widespread around the world. Its ability to fund infrastructure projects and to solve budget constraints have been the main rationale behind its renewed interest. However, less attention has been payed to the safety effects derived from this policy in a moment of increasing concern on road fatalities. Pricing best infrastructures shifts some drivers onto worse alternative roads usually not prepared to receive high traffic in comparable safety standards. In this paper we provide evidence of the existence of this perverse consequence by using an international European panel in a two way fixed effects estimation.Road Safety, Tolls, Motorways and Transportation.

The Economics of Truck Toll Lanes

This paper extends an earlier paper by the authors ("Maintenance and congestion pricing with competing roads" presented at ERSA 2005) by introducing two user groups: heavy and light vehicles (viz. trucks and cars). This extension is important since heavy vehicles generate higher congestion and (much) higher pavement damage externalities than do light vehicles. The model features a simple road network with two routes linking a common origin and destination. Pavement quality on each route depreciates with usage and due to natural weathering. Three administration regimes are analysed. The first two regimes are the second best and first best optima. In the second-best regime maintenance levels are chosen for the two routes, but no tolls are applied. In the first-best regime, both maintenance levels and tolls are set to support an optmal division of traffic between the two routes as well as an optimal quality of service. The final regime is a Duopoly. In this regime each route is owned and operated by a different firm that maximises its own profit by choosing a maintenance level and a toll. The analysis (which is still in progress) entails solution and comparison of the outcomes of the three administration regimes. Among other things, we are interested to see in which regimes routes are differentiated so that one route is mainly used by heavy vehicles and the other by light vehicles. Preliminary results suggest that (as in the case of homogeneous users) private ownership is distorted towards excessive tolls and low maintenance effort.

The long and winding path to private financing and regulation of toll roads

Road transport has long been the dominant form of transport for freight and passenger movement throughout the world. Because most road projects require investments with long amortization periods and because many projects do not generate enough demand to become self-financing through some type of user fee or toll, the road sector remains in the hands of the public sector to a much greater extent than other transport activities. But governments throughout the world, including those of many poor African and South Asian countries, are commercializing their operations to cut costs, improve user orientation, and increase sector-specific revenue. There seems to be demand for toll roads in specific settings, but the problems met by many of this"first generation"of road concessions-from Mexico to Thailand-have given toll projects a bad reputation. Many mistakes were made, and tolling is obviously not the best solution for every road. Most of the alternatives aim at improving efficiency (lowering costs). But there are many ways of getting the private sector involved in toll roads, thus reducing public sector financing requirements for the sector. Understanding the context in which toll roads are viable is essential both for their initial success and for effective long-run regulation. The authors provide a broad overview of issues at stake from the viewpoint of both privatization teams and regulators responsible for supervising contractual commitments of private operators and the government, to each other and to users.Urban Services to the Poor,Roads&Highways,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Decentralization,Banks&Banking Reform,Roads&Highways,Toll Roads,Urban Transport,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Airports and Air Services

The multi modal study of transport investment plans.

In 1998 the UK Department for Transport commissioned a programme of 22 studies to examine the most acute congestion problems on the English road network. The studies promised a new approach to reducing road congestion by examining the contribution that all modes of transport could make to solve these problems. The studies have provided the most convincing evidence to date that road building alone will not be able to solve congestion and pollution problems. Extra road infrastructure will, in most cases, buy a few years’ respite from congestion on the inter-urban road network. The studies have proposed substantial packages of road and public transport improvements, combined with demand management and traffic restraint measures, to tackle the problems. The evidence suggests that some form of road-user charging will be required in many areas to ensure that the efficiency benefits gained from the extra road capacity will not simply be eroded by traffic growth as has been seen to date on routes such as the M25. The outcomes of the studies have prompted the Government to undertake a review of the potential for a national road-user charging system. The multimodal studies have undoubtedly brought about a more balanced and integrated approach to transport planning. There have been quite significant changes to the roads schemes that were initially remitted to the studies and evidence to suggest that significant environmental concerns are now playing a much stronger role in decisions taken by the Department for Transport. The challenge now is to ensure that all of the major parts of the integrated strategies proposed are delivered. A failure to do so will not only reduce the benefits the proposals offer but will also devalue the multi-modal approach taken to the studies

Private Roads, Public Costs: The Facts About Toll Road Privatization and How to Protect the Public

Provides an overview of trends in toll road privatization and discusses implications for the public, including loss of control, financial risk, and lack of transparency. Proposes principles that would protect the public interest in privatization deals

Congestion Relief: Assessing the Case for Road Tolls in Canada

Experience with road pricing generally — and congestion pricing specifically — is growing around the world. Research and planning in Canada should begin now on road pricing for heavily congested highways and streets.road pricing, traffic congestion

The French Multimodal Fund Case Study, Annex 4 to REVENUE Project Deliverable 4, “Report on the Implementation of Interurban Case Studies”

In December 2003, the French government decided to implement an ambitious transport policy with a set of significant transport infrastructure projects. So as to finance a part of this policy a new public funding agency, called AFITF ("Agence pour le Financement des Infrastructures de Transport de France") was implemented the 1st January 2005.AFITF took over from the FITTVN ("Fonds d'Investissement pour les Transports Terrestres et les Voies Navigables") which was created in 1995 to re-launch public investment in transport infrastructures and abolished the 1st January 2001. The succession of investment funds underlines the persistent need for an everlasting transport investment financing.The main objective of successive French governments is an everlasting (or “sustainable”) transport investment financing with the concern of opening up less developed areas. To reach this aim, we focus our case study on important questions like revenues, pricing rule, equity and efficiency issues:• Which revenues to obtain a “sustainable” transport investments financing?• Which pricing rule for financing in an efficient way?• Which allocation between modes for optimal efficiency and for equity?• How will AFITF be “accepted” by different transport actors (motorways companies, road users, rail users...) and poor and rich regions inhabitants?Financing “sustainability”, efficiency and equity issues are addressed by the means of the Molino model and acceptability aspects through an analysis of the creation and ending of the FITTVN.The first part of the case study is devoted to the investment funds feasibility question through the FITTVN example.The second part of the case study is devoted to the assessment of regulation schemes.transport infrastructures ; investment ; regulation schemes ; sustainable mobility ; France ; REVENUE