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OCR for page 82
70 I N T E R N AT I O N A L P E R S P E C T I V E S O N R O A D P R I C I N G
women have opted for the HOT lanes because of the travelers with technological options that will become
pressure of trips from work to child care locations and more acceptable over time.
have reported benefits from the increased range of
travel choices.
Growing Traffic, Financial Pressures, and an
Emphasis on Management
Proving the Effectiveness of
Electronic Toll Collection Throughout the United States there is a widely shared
perception that traffic congestion is worsening. While
Another important trend during the decade since Curb- the reality varies greatly by location, it appears that this
ing Gridlock has been the widespread adoption of elec- perception is generally accurate. Average daily vehicular
tronic toll collection technology throughout the United volumes grew on urban Interstates by 43% between
States. As recently as a decade ago, the lay public and 1985 and 1999. In a study of 68 urban areas the Texas
elected officials simply did not believe that tolls were a Transportation Institute reported that the percentage of
practical way of either collecting revenues or controlling daily travel taking place under congested conditions
traffic congestion, because they envisioned manually increased from 32% in 1982 to 45% in 1999 (Schrank
operated tollbooths at which expensive employees made and Lomax 2001); typical motorists faced 7 hours per
change and delayed traffic. While electronic toll collec- day of congested roadways in 1999 compared with 5
tion using simple transponders has been most widely hours in 1982. The Federal Highway Administration
applied to bridges and roads that had flat tolls that do similarly reported that road delays, defined as travel tak-
not vary with the level of congestion, their use by mil- ing more time than it would under free-flow conditions,
lions of Americans is proving that electronic tolls can be increased by 8.5% between 1993 and 1997.
user-friendly and are technically feasible at acceptable There are several reasons to believe that highway
operating cost. congestion will continue to grow. I indicated earlier
There is no doubt that the dramatic national adop- that highway-related revenues are growing far more
tion of FasTrack and E-ZPass and other electronic toll slowly than volumes of travel, and there is widespread
payment systems is making road pricing more feasible unwillingness by elected officials to raise user fees in
and promising than ever. Familiarity with the operation proportion to increasing costs. In addition, unit costs
of electronic toll collection is reducing opposition to of construction and maintenance are increasing faster
road pricing. Gradually, by relying on electronic toll than the general Consumer Price Index. Higher propor-
payment instruments, some heavily traveled facilities, tions of state transportation budgets must be spent on
including New York City toll bridges and the New Jer- maintenance and rehabilitation, which limits the avail-
sey Turnpike, have introduced modest price differentials ability of funds for new capacity. In addition, many
based on time of day. While these fall short of full con- metropolitan areas are spending higher proportions of
gestion-based pricing, they are clearly a transition their transport funds on transit investments, which lim-
toward it on a scale that I would not have envisioned to its the availability of funds for highways. Where new
be feasible just a decade ago. highways are built or existing ones widened, it is more
In Europe a number of countries have already necessary than ever to invest in mitigation measures
adopted and others will soon adopt systems of that lessen the undesirable impacts of highways on
weightdistance fees for trucks based on electronic communities but reduce the funds available for new
tolling and vehicle tracking systems that incorporate capacity. Despite this, highway traffic is growing faster
Global Positioning Satellite Systems (GPSS). Similarly, than transit use, and urban goods movement--which
several states in the United States are implementing or cannot be accommodated by transit--is growing at a
considering the implementation of such road user faster rate than passenger travel.
charges for goods movement (Forkenbrock and Kuhl For all of these reasons, more and more public offi-
2002). Experiments are either already under way or in cials are accepting that America will be expanding high-
the later stages of planning in Atlanta, Minneapolis, and way capacity much more slowly than highway use for
Seattle that apply GPSS technology to the monitoring of the foreseeable future. This leads to the suggestion that
urban passenger travel to price automobile insurance or we must do more to manage the capacity that we do
road use in more direct proportion to use and cost. While have. This, in turn, is gradually leading to increasing--
the general implementation of electronic road user if still grudging--acceptance of pricing for the purpose
charges for passenger cars based on time and location of of managing flow, especially where the management
travel is obviously not yet under consideration, increased strategy is aimed, as it is on HOT lanes, at the efficient
experimentation and accumulated experience with use of new capacity and the provision of new travel
trucks will continue to familiarize public officials and options.
