Urban toll and sustainable city: Pricing forms and various kinds of economic rationale[Péage urbain et ville " soutenable " : figures de la tarification et avatars de la raison économique]

When it comes to developing car urban traffic, policy makers are faced with critical challenges: urban, financial, environmental, but also social and political. To the latter, economists have been answering for a long time with solutions that seem simple and obvious to them. External costs of car traffic, and particularly congestion costs, are mainly due to an almost non-existence of pricing. As a result, the latter has to be reconsidered. However, contrary to what traditional analyses of the problem suggest, economic rationale runs into the ambivalence of the goals pursued by urban toll. Should new roads be financed and built, or should the overall traffic be significantly reduced? The first goal, more appropriate for inter-city traffic, has progressively been left out in urban areas by the concept of urban toll, which comes up with unexpected ideas such as speed reduction or even the creation of a market for negotiable permits to circulate. These multiple forms of toll explain why the current pricing policies of urban roads are hesitating.