Gaps between Authorities' Measurement And Public's Perception of Effects

   Though some CP schemes have been claimed "successful" achieving significant reductions in traffic volumes, they were carelessly observed regarding to travlers' actual journey time. The fact that a number of automobile users shifting to transit might experienced longer trip time, makes the situation of CP effects more complex than claimed. The key point is the gap between the Authorities' measurement and every motorist's real perception of the CP. To enforce the CP with no pre-appointed service but only traffic volume falls and speed evaluated at an average level, the authorities are confronted with many self-contradictory pitfalls to cover, when persuading the public for pricing a conventional common good on name of social welfare.

 Equity Problems

   Under the cordon pricing or area pricing scheme, it is often that outside people pay for the access permits, and inner people are free (or charged at discount) to enjoy the improvement of roadway service, but the neighbour suffers the external impacts of the overwhelming parking and the bypass route congestion. The enforcement of such a CP produced inter-district equity problem (Ecola and Light, 2009). As we all know, nowhere has appointed a rule, explicitly or implicitly, that those who live nearby a road have priority to consume motorway travels. If that so, could it be said that the more near to a road one lives, the more use rights or higher priority should be assigned to him/her? That doesn't make sense, but it is the implication of the inter-district equity impacts by current CP schemes.

   Considering inter-mode equity, Roth G. (1998) doubted the simplistic notion that cars are bad, public transport is good, and walking and biking are even better, but argued that motorized mobility could be an equal desire of people in all income levels in all known societies. So any superficial restrains imposed by the authority on cars might undermine the mobility and decline people's living standards. Take a case in Singapore for instance, the mode of carpool was once allowed but later on was abolished into control zone without charges as taxi and public buses. The dilemma of positioning the carpool mode in urban transportation system is an example telling a fact that the authority's attitude toward travel mode is often inconsistent and confused.

   Focusing on impacts among travelers, Kockelman, et al. (2005) illustrated the substantial equity effects of the CP, such as average commuters' worse off (Small, 1983) and Hau, 1992), and regressive effects upon rich people (Arnott et al., 1994, Hau, 1992 and Evans, 1992). It was observed by Cervero (1998) that the middle-class motorists often complained they already paid too much in gasoline taxes and registration fees to drive their automobiles, and that to pay more during congested periods would add insult to injury.

   The impacts on economic activities are so complex, that reports often made inconsistent conclusions. It is still too early to make a conclusion about this subject.

   More difficulties were noticed by transportation economists (Button, 1993 and Small et al, 2007) considering the allocation of the revenues collected from the CP system. For now, no common has been achieved among scholars and politicians on a fair solution to all the surcharge payers. Roth (1998) made the concern clear that so long as payment for road use is co-mingled with taxes on road use, and determined by the discretion of the authority, fees paid by motorway users will be subject to allocation to any public purpose in vogue.

to be continued...