IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jregsc/v50y2010i1p471-492.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reforming Road User Charges: A Research Challenge For Regional Science

Author

Listed:
  • Robin Lindsey

Abstract

ABSTRACT The way in which road usage is priced and road infrastructure is funded in the United States has become unsustainable. Support is growing for a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fee to encourage efficient road usage and replace fuel taxes as the primary funding mechanism for road construction, operations, and maintenance. This paper addresses some questions about a VMT fee including what functions it should perform, how finely it should be differentiated, and how users are likely to adapt to it. To implement an efficient VMT fee, it will be necessary to overcome various technological, legal, institutional, and public acceptability barriers.

Suggested Citation

  • Robin Lindsey, 2010. "Reforming Road User Charges: A Research Challenge For Regional Science," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 471-492, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jregsc:v:50:y:2010:i:1:p:471-492
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9787.2009.00639.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.2009.00639.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9787.2009.00639.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Edward Calthrop & Bruno De Borger & Stef Proost, 2007. "Externalities And Partial Tax Reform: Does It Make Sense To Tax Road Freight (But Not Passenger) Transport?," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 721-752, October.
    2. Arnott, Richard & Kraus, Marvin, 1998. "When are anonymous congestion charges consistent with marginal cost pricing?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 45-64, January.
    3. Ian W. H. Parry, 2005. "Is Pay-as-You-Drive Insurance a Better Way to Reduce Gasoline than Gasoline Taxes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 288-293, May.
    4. De Borger, B. & Proost, S. & Van Dender, K., 2005. "Congestion and tax competition in a parallel network," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 2013-2040, November.
    5. Glaister, Stephen & Graham, Daniel J., 2005. "An evaluation of national road user charging in England," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 39(7-9), pages 632-650.
    6. Robin Lindsey, 2006. "Do Economists Reach A Conclusion on Road Pricing? The Intellectual History of an Idea," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 3(2), pages 292-379, May.
    7. Borger Bruno De & Dunkerley Fay & Proost Stef, 2008. "The Interaction between Tolls and Capacity Investment in Serial and Parallel Transport Networks," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-23, March.
    8. Glazer, A., 1998. ""Time Consistency of Congestion Tolls"," Papers 98-99-1, California Irvine - School of Social Sciences.
    9. David N. Cottingham & Alastair R. Beresford & Robert K. Harle, 2007. "Survey of Technologies for the Implementation of National‐scale Road User Charging," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 499-523, January.
    10. Kenneth A. Small & Clifford Winston & Jia Yan, 2005. "Uncovering the Distribution of Motorists' Preferences for Travel Time and Reliability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1367-1382, July.
    11. de Palma, André & Lindsey, Robin & Proost, Stef, 2007. "Chapter 1 Investment and the use of tax and toll revenues in the transport sector: The research agenda," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 1-26, January.
    12. Prud'homme, Rémy & Bocarejo, Juan Pablo, 2005. "The London congestion charge: a tentative economic appraisal," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 279-287, May.
    13. de Palma, André & Lindsey, Robin & Niskanen, Esko, 2006. "Policy insights from the urban road pricing case studies," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 149-161, March.
    14. Ian W. H. Parry & Margaret Walls & Winston Harrington, 2007. "Automobile Externalities and Policies," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(2), pages 373-399, June.
    15. Kenneth A. Small, 2009. "Private Provision of Highways: Economic Issues," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 11-31, July.
    16. Milne, David & Niskanen, Esko & Verhoef, Erik, 2000. "Operationalisation of Marginal Cost Pricing within Urban Transport," Research Reports 63, VATT Institute for Economic Research.
    17. Yang, Hai & Meng, Qiang & Lee, Der-Horng, 2004. "Trial-and-error implementation of marginal-cost pricing on networks in the absence of demand functions," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 477-493, July.
    18. Parry, Ian W.H., 2008. "How should heavy-duty trucks be taxed?," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 651-668, March.
    19. Boyce, David, 2007. "Future research on urban transportation network modeling," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 472-481, July.
    20. David E. Boyce & Hani S. Mahmassani & Anna Nagurney, 2005. "A retrospective on Beckmann, McGuire and Winsten's Studies in the Economics of Transportation," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 84(1), pages 85-103, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Li, Zhi-Chun & Cheng, Li & de Palma, André, 2024. "Ring road investment, cordon tolling, and urban spatial structure," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    2. Rigot-Müller, Patrick, 2018. "Analysing the heavy goods vehicle “écotaxe” in France: Why did a promising idea fail in implementation?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 147-173.
    3. Li, Zhi-Chun & Wang, Ya-Dong, 2018. "Analysis of multimodal two-dimensional urban system equilibrium for cordon toll pricing and bus service design," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 244-265.
    4. Andrew F. Haughwout, 2010. "Management Of Large City Regions: Designing Efficient Metropolitan Fiscal Policies," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 401-421, February.
    5. Yang, Hai & Wang, Xiaolei, 2011. "Managing network mobility with tradable credits," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 580-594, March.
    6. Zhi-Chun Li & Li Cheng & André de Palma, 2023. "Ring road investment, cordon tolling, and urban spatial structure: Formulation and a case study," THEMA Working Papers 2023-07, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    7. Zhi-Chun Li & Qian-Wen Guo, 2017. "Optimal time for implementing cordon toll pricing scheme in a monocentric city," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 96(1), pages 163-190, March.
    8. Carling, Kenneth & Håkansson, Johan & Meng, Xiangli & Rudholm, Niklas, 2017. "The effect on CO2 emissions of taxing truck distance in retail transports," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 47-54.

    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. André de Palma & Robin Lindsey, 2009. "Traffic Congestion Pricing Methods and Technologies," Working Papers hal-00414526, HAL.
    2. Lindsey, Robin, 2012. "Road pricing and investment," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 49-63.
    3. Parry, Ian & Strand, Jon, 2012. "International fuel tax assessment: an application to Chile," Environment and Development Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(2), pages 127-144, April.
    4. Marco Percoco, 2010. "Urban Transport Policies And The Environment: Evidence From Italy," Articles, International Journal of Transport Economics, vol. 37(2).
    5. Arnott, Richard, 2007. "Congestion tolling with agglomeration externalities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 187-203, September.
    6. Palma, André de & Lindsey, Robin & Proost, Stef, 2006. "Research challenges in modelling urban road pricing: An overview," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 97-105, March.
    7. Ian W.H. Parry, 2009. "Pricing Urban Congestion," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 461-484, September.
    8. Arnott, Richard & Shevyakhova, Elizaveta, 2014. "Tenancy rent control and credible commitment in maintenance," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 72-85.
    9. Kenneth Small, 2015. "The Bottleneck Model: An Assessment and Interpretation," Working Papers 141506, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    10. Lee, J.F. Jennifer & Kwok, Peter K. & Williams, Jeffrey, 2014. "Heterogeneity among motorists in traffic-congested areas in southern California," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 281-293.
    11. Green, Colin P. & Heywood, John S. & Navarro, María, 2016. "Traffic accidents and the London congestion charge," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 11-22.
    12. Grahn-Voorneveld, Sofia, 2011. "Sharing profit in parallel and serial transport networks," Working papers in Transport Economics 2011:7, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    13. Welch, Timothy F. & Mishra, Sabyasachee, 2014. "A framework for determining road pricing revenue use and its welfare effects," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 61-70.
    14. Mandell, Svante & Proost, Stef, 2016. "Why truck distance taxes are contagious and drive fuel taxes to the bottom," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 1-17.
    15. Calthrop, Edward & De Borger, Bruno & Proost, Stef, 2010. "Cost-benefit analysis of transport investments in distorted economies," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 850-869, August.
    16. Winston, Clifford & Karpilow, Quentin, 2017. "A New Route to Increasing Economic Growth: Reducing Highway Congestion with Autonomous Vehicles," Working Papers 03323, George Mason University, Mercatus Center.
    17. DeCicca, Philip & Kenkel, Donald & Liu, Feng, 2013. "Excise tax avoidance: The case of state cigarette taxes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 1130-1141.
    18. Li, Zhi-Chun & Lam, William H.K. & Wong, S.C., 2017. "Step tolling in an activity-based bottleneck model," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 306-334.
    19. Bruno De Borger & Wilfried Pauwels, 2010. "A Nash bargaining solution to models of tax and investment competition: tolls and investment in serial transport corridors," Working Papers 2010/1, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    20. Boyce, David, 2013. "Beckmann's transportation network equilibrium model: Its history and relationship to the Kuhn–Tucker conditions," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 47-52.

    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:bla:jregsc:v:50:y:2010:i:1:p:471-492. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-4146 .

    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.