Predicting the results of a referendum on urban road pricing in France: “the cry of Cassandra”?

Abstract

Abundant literature now exists on the acceptability of the new pricing measure represented by urban tolls. However, this literature contains few examples providing a “political” analysis of their introduction. Here, our aim is to study how the political behavior of individuals, identified on the basis of general attitudes regarding the principles of regulation and pricing, influences, or does not influence, attitudes with respect to urban tolls. We study the ex-ante determinants of a vote on urban tolls. We use the results of a survey performed in France in the framework of the European Project ExpAcc (Explanatory Factors of Road User Charging Acceptability). We process the data using a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) then perform ordered logit estimation. Regarding the specific question to the referendum, we show that it would be rejected by electors. We also show that there is a significant link between general attitudes to regulation by legislation, tax or pricing policies in transport on the one hand, and the vote in the referendum on tolls on the other. We confirm that individual self-interest matters a lot in political behaviour but that other types of motives also matter strongly As a consequence, a real-life political analysis cannot be limited to classical “economic” variables, even if they matter too obviously. Lastly, our results should be placed in relation with those concerning the more global issue of the acceptability of a new pricing measure through, for example, that of the compensation to be implemented.