IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/acb/agenda/v19y2012i2p77-88.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Problem of Road Congestion: The Futility of 'Avoidable Cost' Estimates

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Harrison

Abstract

The Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics estimates of the costs of road congestion in Australian capital cities ($9.4 billion in 2005 and projected to more than double by 2020) are widely cited. But these projections appear to overstate the problem and provide little, if any, guidance for sound policy development. They are not measures of the net gain from introducing congestion charging. Moreover, such numbers provide no help for evaluating the net benefits of other policies to deal with congestion, such as increasing road capacity. Without efficiency-based cost-benefit analysis of all policies to deal with road congestion, governments run the risk of lowering social welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Harrison, 2012. "The Problem of Road Congestion: The Futility of 'Avoidable Cost' Estimates," Agenda - A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics, vol. 19(2), pages 77-88.
    • Handle: RePEc:acb:agenda:v:19:y:2012:i:2:p:77-88
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p208901/pdf/ch084.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eliasson, Jonas, 2008. "Lessons from the Stockholm congestion charging trial," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 395-404, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Qixiu Cheng & Zhiyuan Liu & Feifei Liu & Ruo Jia, 2017. "Urban dynamic congestion pricing: an overview and emerging research needs," International Journal of Urban Sciences, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(0), pages 3-18, August.
    2. Mattauch, Linus & Hepburn, Cameron & Stern, Nicholas, 2018. "Pigou pushes preferences: decarbonisation and endogenous values," INET Oxford Working Papers 2018-16, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    3. Hakim Hammadou & Claire Papaix, 2015. "Policy packages for modal shift and CO2 reduction in Lille, France," Working Papers 1501, Chaire Economie du climat.
    4. De Borger, Bruno & Russo, Antonio, 2018. "The political economy of cordon tolls," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 133-148.
    5. Börjesson, Maria & Kristoffersson, Ida, 2014. "Assessing the welfare effects of congestion charges in a real world setting," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 339-355.
    6. Suman, Hemant K. & Bolia, Nomesh B., 2019. "Improvement in direct bus services through route planning," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 263-274.
    7. Eliasson, Jonas, 2016. "Is congestion pricing fair? Consumer and citizen perspectives on equity effects," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 1-15.
    8. Vonk Noordegraaf, Diana & Annema, Jan Anne & van Wee, Bert, 2014. "Policy implementation lessons from six road pricing cases," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 172-191.
    9. Björn Hårsman & John M. Quigley, 2010. "Political and public acceptability of congestion pricing: Ideology and self-interest," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(4), pages 854-874.
    10. Börjesson, Maria & Kristoffersson, Ida, 2018. "The Swedish congestion charges: Ten years on," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 35-51.
    11. Lehe, Lewis J., 2017. "Downtown tolls and the distribution of trip lengths," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 11, pages 23-32.
    12. Catherine Althaus & Lindsay M. Tedds & Allen McAvoy, 2011. "The Feasibility of Implementing a Congestion Charge on the Halifax Peninsula: Filling the "Missing Link" of Implementation," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 37(4), pages 541-561, December.
    13. De Vos, Jonas, 2016. "Road pricing in a polycentric urban region: Analysing a pilot project in Belgium," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 134-142.
    14. Anderstig, Christer & Berglund, Svante & Eliasson, Jonas & Andersson, Matts & Pyddoke, Roger, 2012. "Congestion charges and labour market imperfections: “Wider economic benefits” or “losses”?," Working papers in Transport Economics 2012:4, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    15. Bernardo, Valeria & Fageda, Xavier & Flores-Fillol, Ricardo, 2021. "Pollution and congestion in urban areas: The effects of low emission zones," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 26.
    16. Lehe, Lewis J., 2020. "Winners and losers from road pricing with heterogeneous travelers and a mixed-traffic bus alternative," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 432-446.
    17. Eliasson, Jonas, 2017. "Congestion pricing," MPRA Paper 88224, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Arlinghaus, Johanna Brigitte & Konc, Théo & Mattauch, Linus & Sommer, Stephan, 2024. "The effect of information framing on policy support: Experimental evidence from urban policies," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302449, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    19. Juan Pedro Muñoz Miguel & Ana Elizabeth García Sipols & Clara Simón de Blas & Francisca Anguita Rodríguez, 2021. "A Model to Evaluate the Effect of Urban Road Pricing on Traffic Speed and Congestion in Madrid City Center and Its Surrounding," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-23, July.
    20. Raux, Charles & Souche, Stéphanie & Pons, Damien, 2012. "The efficiency of congestion charging: Some lessons from cost–benefit analyses," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 85-92.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:acb:agenda:v:19:y:2012:i:2:p:77-88. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/feanuau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.