Critical Success Factors for Implementing Road Charging Systems

Road user charging is used as an 'umbrella' term to describe a wide range ofapplications of pricing roads and infrastructure. Road user charging includes a number ofcharging measures that governments and other road owners use to: i) finance new or maintain existing road infrastructure ii) manage traffic (e.g. reduce congestion) iii) minimise environmental impacts of transport iv) internalise the external costs of road transport caused, e.g., by pollution and noise emissions.Historically, the common approach to charging for road use is some form of generaltaxation rather than differentiated road user charging. Road user charging has long beenproposed as an efficient and equitable method to pay for road use and to fund roadinfrastructure projects. However, there is an important distinction between charging forrevenue generation purposes as opposed to pricing roads to provide congestion relief. Thetwo basic objectives, revenue generation and congestion management, differ in severalways, as shown in the following table.