Peter M. Jones

THE VALUATION OF RELIABILITY FOR PERSONAL TRAVEL

The paper reviews progress made towards a general theory of the travellers valuation of travel time reliability, and give some indication of recent empirical research in this area. In the progress it brings together a large number of theoretical and empirical results, many of which are only partly in the public domain. Key theoretical results relating to the highway mode are discussed, and expanded to take in the additional complexity of scheduled public transport services. The paper also deals with the problems of collecting empirical data, and describes a recent study carried out by the authors in the context of rail travel, showing how valuations can be derived.

Road Pricing: The Public Viewpoint

While many academics and practitioners in the transport field now consider the case for introducing road user charging to be a very strong one, as a mechanism for making drivers pay the various externalities associated with their vehicle use, there are many cities around the world where schemes which sought to apply such principles to car traffic were not implemented due to adverse public reaction and political pressures — even though they had considerable technical merit. Instances include proposals for supplementary licensing in London and Kuala Lumpur, and for electronic road pricing in Hong Kong (Borins, 1988) and the Netherlands (Stoelhorst and Zandbergen, 1990), as well as the various attempts to increase petrol taxes in the United States.

Transport survey quality and innovation

This overview of developments in transport survey methods from around the world emphasises survey quality and innovation. It contains selected papers from the International Conference on Transport Survey Quality and Innovation.

Acceptability of Road User Charging: Meeting the Challenge

This chapter aims to identify the factors that limit the acceptability of road user charging (RUC), and also to consider various ways in which they can be addressed. Current knowledge about public attitudes and acceptability are reviewed, and these are compared with professional viewpoints. Specific issues are then identified that need to be recognized and dealt with in order to maximize public acceptance. A set of guidelines is proposed that outlines the stages that should be followed to introduce a successful RUC scheme. Some of the practical means by which public support can be increased are considered, and Edinburgh is used as an example of how stakeholder views can be included in the design process. Lastly, the chapter draws some general policy conclusions and identifies future research needs.

Using Public Consultation in Developing Edinburgh's Congestion-Charging-Based Transport Strategy

The City of Edinburgh Council is developing a transport strategy based on the introduction of a congestion-charging scheme, linked to the implementation of a major package of transport improvements. A phased consultation approach is being used to allow public views to form a major input into the transport strategy design process. The overall objectives of the consultation in relation to the major project milestones are discussed. The results of each of four completed consultation phases are presented, along with how these results have been used to narrow the range of potential transport strategy options to one preferred congestion-charging scheme design and associated transport improvement package. The results of the completed consultation phases have shown that public views on different elements of the transport strategy design range from a high degree of consensus to a considerable degree of diversity. It has been found that the level of charge is the most significant factor in determining the level of public support for a particular congestion-charging scheme, with the lowest charge levels invariably receiving the greatest level of support, even when this is associated with a smaller transport investment package. In general, the consultation results have shown that there is significant in-principle support for a congestion-charging-based transport strategy but that support tends to decline as the strategy becomes more accurately defined. A major challenge appears to exist in retaining in-principle support through to project implementation.