ABSTRACT
This chapter describes that how the method of studying the acceptability of road pricing is strongly influenced by grounded theorising. In terms of the link between different people's opinions and a sociological theory, it could be said that a theory of acceptability does not exist. The chapter describes that the piecemeal knowledge about the acceptability of urban road pricing is used to decide on a method that can meet the research objective. Different approaches to methodology in social science are described. This divides methods into two broad divisions: positivism, which is best for testing theories, and naturalism, which is best for discovering theoretical explanations. The chapter describes the main techniques in naturalist methods and shows how they can help meet the conditions of the research project. Once the naturalistic methodology was chosen, the discussion showed how the method of grounded theorising was relevant to transport planning concerns.
