Author(s)

T.H. Zunder & J.N. Ibáñez

Abstract

Traffic congestion across European cities is a serious problem that is very unlikely to be solved by adding more road capacity. Following the shifting focus from the supply side to the demand side, the present paper introduces congestion charging as an efficient measure to improve urban mobility and reduce transport emissions through an adequate management of the available capacity. The theoretical foundation of the pricing mechanism involved and the relations with the EU transport and energy policy guidelines and directives are reviewed. Several trends are analysed in detail to support the need for an efficient and major policy as congestion charging, among them the following: the still growing EU urban population which is expected to make passenger transport demand grow until more than 40% above the 1990 levels, the estimations by the UK government of almost 90% of the r

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