Abstract
Severe traffic congestion is now a common problem in major cities worldwide, causing huge economic, environmental, and social losses to overall welfare. Governments are now considering congestion charging as an effective way to manage congestion. However, since congestion charging has not yet been implemented widely, the public remains uncertain about it. Few scholars have explored public uncertainty about congestion charging. This paper examined how the public perceived uncertainty toward fairness and efficiency affects willingness to accept congestion charging. Through an experimental study of stated preference, this paper analyzes the influence of observable variables and unobserved latent variables on public acceptability and compares the results with a traditional discrete choice model. The results indicated that the public’s perceived uncertainty about congestion charging will have significant negative effect on acceptability and that the perception of fairness has an even larger effect. As for uncertainty about the effectiveness of congestion charging on alleviating congestion, the implementation efficiency of the government is the most significant. For uncertainty about fairness, whether charge collection and revenue allocation are reasonable is the most significant. These findings provide an empirical basis for reducing public uncertainty and increasing public acceptance of congestion charging.
Highlights
In recent years, with the development of urbanization, the contradiction between the supply and demand of urban transportation is becoming increasingly prominent especially in mega cities and metropolitan areas, such as Beijing
The perceived uncertainty of congestion charging validity (X1∗) constitutes eight indicators, from which it can be seen that the biggest indicator of perceived uncertainty about congestion charging effectiveness is a concern about the effect of congestion charging on alleviating congestion (I1)
Transfer payment is a common means of public finance, in the context of congestion charging, if the payment is used for other items, instead of road construction and public transportation, people will be more reluctant to accept the policy
Summary
With the development of urbanization, the contradiction between the supply and demand of urban transportation is becoming increasingly prominent especially in mega cities and metropolitan areas, such as Beijing. From an economic point of view, the essence of congestion pricing is to guide people to choose their mode of travel rationally and thereby alleviate urban traffic congestion. Charging based on road traffic congestion as an effective economic instrument for traffic demand management, is beginning to be discussed. While congestion charging is theoretically effective, it faces many obstacles in practice. Urban road congestion is a systematic problem, and correspondingly, reasonable policies must be formulated to achieve maximum effect. While it is feasible to collect traffic congestion fees, public opinion about such fees remains to be investigated. This paper examines how public perceived uncertainty toward fairness and efficiency affects willingness to accept congestion charging in the Beijing context
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