ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role that congestion charging might have in contributing towards the objective of sustainable mobility, in terms of its impacts on land use and the local economy. It focuses on the potential contribution that congestion charging can have in strengthening and concentrating land uses and developments so that journey lengths are reduced, and in exploring the wider impacts on the local economy. Land use and transport models find it difficult to incorporate the second round effects of transport interventions on land use and the attractiveness of city centres, and in isolating the local economic impacts. Locations with good alternative public transport would have added attraction and city centre real estate prices would increase, at least in the short term or until the market responded with an increase in supply. Geographic concentration relies on the interaction between increasing returns, transport costs and demand. London has provided the first real example of cordon pricing in a major European city.
