ABSTRACT
Charging schemes have the potential to make significant reductions in congestion and to improve the capacity, speed and reliability of public transport, but it is important that such schemes are designed to enhance the urban environment. Schemes which merely displace traffic from a city centre to suburban or inter-urban road networks may cure urban congestion at the price of urban decline, and will lead to problems elsewhere on the road network. (Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations of Select Committee on Transport: First Report – Urban Charging Schemes (2003) @ https://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/ cmtran/390/39003.htm)
In-depth studies of public concerns about proposed road user charging schemes have revealed a number of issues, ranging from the reliability of the technology to a lack of acceptance of the principle of direct charging. However, the most pervasive and deep-seated concerns relate to the ‘fairness’ of the scheme. In political terms too, equity is a key issue, but one that has received relatively little attention by academics or practitioners. (Addressing Equity Concerns in Relation to Road User Charging, Professor Peter Jones, Transport Studies Group, University of Westminster (UK) @ https://www.transport-pricing.net/jonel.doc )
The key argument of this book is that it is undoubtedly the case that traffic demand management tools are required to provide an efficient transport system within Britain. Equally important to the argument made here is the need to ensure that demand management tools are developed within a framework which pays full attention to issues of social equity. This chapter will provide an insight into the need for demand management tools and the background to the emergence of congestion charging as a policy instrument in the UK. The key aim of the Oxford University research on which this book itself is based was to examine the impacts of road user
Instruments: Road User Charging and Work Place Parking Levy
charging/workplace parking levy on social inclusion and exclusion. Individuals from ethnic minorities, amongst other social groups such as women, the young and elderly, may be particularly affected by congestion charging due to a number of factors such as low income, working patterns, current high rates of social exclusion, high reliance on car-based travel for some journeys and the non-feasibility of public transport for some journeys. The research sought to explore the range of impacts of different charging schemes and scenarios on people’s travel behaviour, time organisation and socio-economic activity. It did so by interviewing and conducting focus groups and collecting travel diaries with members of the affected public in two cities in Britain, Bristol and Nottingham, where demand management schemes were under consideration or in development. Details of the research process and methodology are provided in Appendix 1 and, in Chapters 4 and 5, the proposed operation of these schemes is considered in detail. In this chapter, we have a glimpse of the views of Bristol and Nottingham residents into the workings of Road User Charging and Work Place Parking Levy. Within this book, we are primarily interested in the ethnic dimension of perceptions and experiences of transport and its management and the focus will be placed primarily upon the displacement impacts of road user charging and work place parking levy on ethnic neighbourhoods adjacent to proposed demand management schemes.
