Heike Link
German Institute for Economic Research
Department of Regional and Transportation Research
Königin-Luise-Str. 5
14 195 Berlin
Germany
T: +49-30-897-89 312
E: hlink@diw.de
John Polak (corresponding author)
Centre for Transport Studies
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine
Exhibition Road
London SW7 2BU
United Kingdom
T: +44-20-7594-6089
E: j.polak@ic.ac.uk
Word Count: 5344 + 5 Figures and 3 tables
Submitted for PRESENTATION and PUBLICATION to the 82 nd
Annual Meeting of the Transportation
Research Board
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

Abstract
Transport pricing has been an actively debated topic in the European Union for a number of years. This debate has been stimulated both by the European Commission policy by a multitude of national policy initiatives. A central theme in this debate is the issue of the public and (linked to this) political acceptability of pricing measures (1-5). Indeed concerns regarding acceptability now constitute the most significant single barrier to implementation, especially in the road transport sector. This paper reports the results of recent research undertaken on behalf of the European Commission into the acceptability of different transport pricing measures to professionals and citizens and the factors influencing their acceptability.
2
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3
INTRODUCTION
Transport pricing has been an actively debated topic in the European Union for a number of years. This debate has been stimulated both by the European Commission itself (notably through the publication of the Green
Paper on “Fair and Efficient Pricing” and the White Paper on “Fair Charging for Infrastructure Use”) and by a multitude of national policy initiatives such as distance-based charging schemes for heavy goods vehicles (e.g., in Switzerland and in Germany), urban and interurban road pricing (e.g., in the Netherlands and the UK) and ecological tax reforms (e.g. in Germany).
The theoretical aspects of different pricing principles and the economic effects of specific pricing measures have been examined extensively in the scientific literature. However, most of the current debate in
Europe has revolved around the issue of the public and (linked to this) political acceptability of pricing measures
(1-5). Indeed concerns regarding acceptability now constitute the most significant single barrier to implementation, especially in the road transport sector where recent studies suggest that pricing measures are rejected by a majority of car drivers (6,7).
This paper reports the results of recent research undertaken on behalf of the European Commission into the acceptability of different transport pricing measures and the factors influencing their acceptability (8). This research dealt with user charging and taxation measures in the transport sector, covered all modes of transport.
The research used both qualitative and quantitative survey techniques. The qualitative surveys took the form of
(i) structured interviews with key transport operators and decision makers (key informants) in 9 European countries, (ii) focus groups with the general public, in 3 European countries and (iii) a Delphi survey with key informants, in 5 European countries. These qualitative methods were complemented by an extensive quantitative survey of public attitudes, undertaken in 6 European countries. The qualitative surveys considered both established pricing instruments such as fuel and vehicle taxation, parking charges, motorway tolling and urban road pricing and more novel instruments such as environmental charges, ecological tax reform and a more differentiated public transport pricing. The results from the initial set of quantitative surveys were used to inform the design of the subsequent public quantitative attitude surveys. This paper concentrates on the results of the surveys of citizens and key informants.
KEY INFORMANT SURVEY
Survey design
The main objective of this part of the research was to identify the factors influencing the acceptability of different pricing policy measures to key decision makers. Structured face-to-face interviews were carried out with 104 key informants, in 9 European countries, comprising representatives from political parties, ministries
(transport, economic affairs, finance), land-use planning and environmental authorities and municipalities, infrastructure providers and transport operators (from all transport modes), interest associations (touring clubs, associations of road hauliers, consumer associations, organisations of opponents to transport pricing and of supporters such as environmentalists). For the purposes of analysis the key informants were collected into two groups; ‘policy makers’ and ‘transport providers and users’. Participants were asked to respond on behalf of their organization, not with a personal opinion.
Survey results
What factors influence acceptability?
Respondents were asked to rate the importance of a number of factors in influencing the acceptability of a pricing measure, using a 5 points scale from ‘not important at all’ to ‘obligatory’ (see Figure 1). For both policy makers and providers and users, clarity of purpose and transparency of pricing mechanisms emerged as particularly important. Overall, the views of the two groups regarding the relative importance of different factors were rather similar. In addition to the features of pricing measures shown in figure 1 the respondents mentioned further preconditions for making pricing schemes acceptable:
•
Policy makers were concerned that pricing should not be perceived by users as another form of taxation.
•
Both groups emphasised the need for detailed and early information on the pricing measure, and the importance of publicity campaigns.
•
Both groups also mentioned the necessity for pricing measures to be effective in achieving their stated objectives and consequently, the need for monitoring.
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4
•
Transport operators and users emphasised that in addition to being ‘clear’ the objective of the pricing must be ‘reasonable’, though the definition of reasonable varied from group to group.
•
Both groups believed that the price charged should be related in some way to the real costs of transport, however, contradictory views were expressed on what was meant.
•
Transport providers and users emphasised that both the overall effects and the distributional impacts
(winners and losers) of a policy must be clear.
What are acceptable pricing purposes, pricing structures and revenue spending schemes?
Respondents were asked to rank five alternative pricing purposes in terms of their acceptability and for each purpose to indicate the most appropriate pricing principle to apply. The issue of revenue spending was explored both by allowing respondents to give free-form answers and by asking them from a set of pre-determined options. The responses to these questions can be summarised as follows:
•
The most acceptable pricing purpose was infrastructure costs recovery with demand management ranked second. The internalisation of external effects was ranked higher by policy makers than by transport providers and users. Both groups were opposed to pricing measures aimed simply at raising revenue for the general budget (see Figure 2).
•
The results suggest that key informants understand that different pricing purposes may imply different pricing principles. For example, more than half of the policy makers and almost two thirds of the transport providers and users considered marginal cost pricing as appropriate for demand management.
•
Some interesting results were obtained on the use of revenues. Answers to the free-form questions revealed a substantial difference between the responses of policy makers and transport providers and users. The favoured revenue spending of policy makers was to convey the money to the general budget and to reduce general taxation (21 %). By contrast, transport providers and users preferred to see revenue spent building and maintain transport infrastructure (23 %) and to improve quality and safety (11 %). The high proportion of providers and users argued against cross-subsidisation and in favour of the hypothecation of revenues for use within the mode charged. Furthermore, it was interesting that none of the policy makers suggested using revenues for better information of users or for research and development. These general patterns were also apparent in the responses to the pre-determined spending options (see figure 3).
Which pricing measures are acceptable?
The respondents were asked to rank the most acceptable pricing and taxation measures from a pre-defined set ranging from road pricing, rail track access charges, fuel and vehicle taxes, parking charges to environmental charges and eco-taxes (see Figure 3). Generally, the choices of the respondents showed a clear preference for well-known instruments. Most popular for policy makers seems to be fuel taxation followed by interurban road pricing and parking pricing whereas transport providers and users prefer interurban road pricing, followed by vehicle taxation and parking pricing. Analysis by countries revealed considerable differences. Fuel taxation is the favourite of policy makers in all countries. However, only the transport providers and users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland would agree with this choice of policy makers while in other European countries fuel taxation came at the fourth rank only. The transport providers and users in France, Portugal and Italy prefer interurban road pricing – perhaps due to their familiarity with this pricing scheme – and surprisingly also environmental charges.
The Northern country group (UK, Sweden and the Netherlands) also prefers interurban road pricing.
From these findings we can conclude that well-known and established pricing measures such as fuel taxation, interurban road pricing (giving the tolling experience in some countries) and parking charges are preferred. Regarding the design of measures it should be mentioned that the respondents rejected all pricing measures with a flat-rate charge (fare) structure. With the exception of rail track access charges, two-part charges were also rejected. For road pricing (both interurban and urban) the respondents favoured the charging of all vehicles. For almost all pricing measures where a differentiated charge regime with respect to time, geographical area, CO
2
- and noise emissions and service quality was possible, the respondents preferred differentiated prices, charges and taxes. Moreover, we could not observe any differences in the responses of those affected by the pricing measures in question, and the remaining respondents.
CITIZEN SURVEY
The citizen surveys were the main instrument used to explore individual’s assessment of the acceptability of pricing and taxation measures. A variety of pricing measures was analysed with the emphasis on understanding how the acceptability of a pricing policy measure is influenced by the variation in pricing levels, the use of
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

5 revenues generated, the design and combination of compensatory measures and how these relationships vary across different countries.
Survey design
The survey design adopted for the citizen surveys was that of a tiered approach, with a common core of questions to allow comparability across the countries, but with different question sets for different institutional contexts and survey techniques. The target population of the citizen surveys was adults aged 18–75 and included both respondents living in urban and non-urban areas. A stratified design was used in order to ensure that the sample contained sufficient numbers of key social groups such as the elderly and the non–car owning who would otherwise be poorly represented in a strictly random sample. A total of just over 1300 individuals were interviewed in the six countries, with no country contributing less than 100 persons. Three types of information were collected in the survey:
Type 1: Basic socio-demographic circumstances and travel behaviour
• basic demographic characteristics (gender, age, household structure, car ownership, working status and profession),
• household income (collected in banded form, with the bands presented in national currencies and adjusted to reflect typical national salary levels),
• location of home and workplace and commute distance.
• mobility data (mode used for most recent trip made for each of the following purposes: commuting/ education, business travel, shopping, leisure, holidays, serving children and other; mode and purpose of the most recent long distance trip (> 100km, one–way).
Type 2: Relevant aspects of peoples’ general attitudes
A common set of attitude scale questions was developed, exploring respondents’ attitudes and opinions in relation to four interrelated issues:
•
General aspects of their own and other people’s mobility,
•
General aspects of the environment,
•
How public authorities do and/or should use transport pricing revenues,
•
Fairness and equity in the collection and use of transport related revenues.
Each individual was asked a total of 19 attitude scale questions; 5 referring to aspects of mobility, 4 referring aspects of the environment, 6 referring to the use of transport related revenues and 4 referring to aspects of fairness and equity (see table 1). Responses to each attitude scale question were collected using a 5 point semantic agreement scale (from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”). The technology of charging, its reliability and privacy issues as well as the role of information was not addressed in this part but tested in a separate part of the survey related to specific pricing packages.
Type 3: Attitudes and responses to specific pricing policy measures
Each survey additionally included a series of questions on opinions about country-specific pricing measures.
These measures were chosen to reflect current policy or issues that were central to the current policy debate in the country in question on the one hand. The measures tested for each country were:
•
UK: Workplace parking charges (with the revenues used to improve alternative modes) and Urban Road
Pricing.
•
Netherlands: Urban and inter–urban road pricing.
•
France: Urban road pricing and an environmental charging that may affect many sectors, including transport.
•
Germany: An ecological tax that would affect many sectors including transport and time-differentiated public transport fares.
•
Austria: Inter–urban road pricing and differentiated public transport fares to reflect quality and speed.
•
Sweden: An environmental charge that may affect many sectors including transport, workplace parking charging and Urban Road Pricing.
For each policy measure in each country, respondents were asked to appraise the policy on separate attitude scales (the number and type of scale varied between 6 and 10 according to policy and country) covering issues such as:
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

6
• general support for the policy,
• the perceived outcomes of the policy for solving transport and environmental problems,
• the perceived implications of the policy in terms of mobility, behavioural changes and equity,
• data protection and similar issues.
In addition, respondents in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria were also asked to indicate in which ways they would prefer to see the revenue raised by the pricing measure to be used.
In order to gain further insight into the compensatory relationship between different pricing and spending options and into the effects of price levels, a stated preference survey with respondents from France and Sweden was conducted. In this exercise, respondents were asked to rate, on a 5-point preference scale relative to current conditions (with “1” indicating “much worse than at present” and “5” indicating “much better than at present”), various different packages involving combinations of pricing and spending measures. Two pricing measures were considered:
•
An environmental charge related to atmospheric emissions and added to the price of fuel (affecting (car) fuel prices and air ticket prices). The charge was specified at 3 different levels and for the French sample illustrated by the example of a 2-way car trip from Paris to Marseilles. In the Swedish sample the environmental charge was illustrated by increases in the price of fuel for a car trip from Stockholm to
Gothenborg. There were three different spending options linked to this charge: (1) Subsidy for the development of environmentally friendly fuels and engines, (2) Reducing in income tax and social security charges, (3) Contribution to the general government budget.
•
An urban road pricing charge operating on weekdays between the hours of 07:00 and 20:00. The daily charge was again specified at 3 levels. This charge was linked with the following 3 revenue spending options: (1) Construction and/or improvement of the road network, (2) Improvements in both the road network and public transport, (3) Reducing in local taxes.
Survey results
General attitude scales
Two types of analysis were performed with the data collected using attitudinal scales. First, a simple descriptive analysis of the mean and median scale scores of each question, separately for each country. This simple comparison of mean and median scores between countries is effective for highlighting gross differences and similarities, but it has two important drawbacks:
•
Since the composition of the samples in different countries is different (and not necessarily representative of the underlying population as a whole), differences in attitudes cannot be unambiguously attributed to country specific sources.
•
The simple descriptive analysis does not tell us what factors significantly influence attitudes and in what way.
It was in the light of these drawbacks that we decided to develop a second instrument, a simple statistical model (the ordered response probit model), which relates each of the 19 attitude scale measurements to the independent variables describing person-level and household-level and national-level variables. This analysis enabled us to detect systematic multi-variate relation relationship between these factors and the acceptability of different pricing policy measures. Details of the statistical modelling are given elsewhere (8).
Figure 4 shows the mean (solid bar) and median (hatched bar) agreement scores for the 19 attitude scales presented in Table 1. In these figures, the smaller the reported score the stronger is the agreement with the corresponding attitude statement in Table 1. Considering the results as a whole, the following broad patterns seem to emerge in all countries:
•
Mobility
- Public transport is strongly valued. Roads are seen as basic public service, to which people are entitled.
- Congestion is seen as threat to free movement and unlikely to be solved by charging.
•
Environment
- Motor cars and aircraft are seen as particularly damaging to the environment.
- There is widespread support (amongst the sample) for higher user charges on lorries and lower charges on ‘green modes’.
•
Revenues
- There is a strong preference for the revenues raised from transport user charges to be spent on transport and strong opposition to use of these revenues outside transport.
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7
•
Fairness
- There is a strong belief that transport is already too heavily taxed coupled with little support for ‘user pays’ principle.There is also strong suspicion of government motives in increasing transport related taxes and user charges.
Table 2 presents the results of the ordered response probit models which were fitted to the semantic scale responses. The key interest in this analysis was to determine (a) which socio–economic and mobility related factors appear to significantly influence general attitudes and (b) the nature of this influence, specifically whether a particular factor (such as for example car ownership) is associated with an increase or decrease in support for a specific attitude. Table 2 shows the categories of the different explanatory variables examined, with the base category of each variable indicated in italics. For each attitudinal question, those variables and categories showing a statistically significant effect (at the 5% level) are marked either by a “+” or a “-”, with the former indicating that the respective category leads to an increase in support for the attitude statement, relative to the base category, and a “-” indicating that the respective category leads to a decrease in support relative to the base category.
Attitudes to mobility are significantly affected by country of residence and (to a more limited degree) by car use and employment patterns. Likewise, attitudes towards the environment are also significantly related to country and car use. In particular, regular car users are significantly less likely to attribute negative environmental impact to plane and car use. Regarding the use of revenues a more complex pattern of dependence with (again) significant differences between different countries and also significant effects due to income and car use was found. Regular car users appear to be particularly reluctant to support the use of transport revenues outside the transport sector, except to reduce income taxes. The analysis of the equity statements indicates that, even controlling for national differences, regular car users are significantly more resistant that others, both to paying more for transport and to seeing such revenues used for redistributive purposes. As might be expected, those on medium to low incomes support redistributive uses. In summary, these results indicate that:
•
Attitudes to transport pricing and related issues are significantly influenced by a number of factors including, country of residence, regularity of car use, income and to a lesser extent by, age, employment and work location.
•
In particular, strong country–specific effects are present in all the attitudes scales, reflecting the importance of local policy contexts and local political debates and suggesting that a single Europe wide policy direction will be extremely difficult to achieve.
•
The single most important and pervasive influence on attitudes appears to be the regularity of car use.
•
Differences between countries are especially marked in respect of attitudes towards the environment.
•
The influence of income can be seen in respect to peoples’ attitudes towards the use of revenues. Higher income groups generally prefer to see the revenue from user charges invested in new or improved transport infrastructure.
Attitudes towards country-specific pricing measures
The overall results indicate that the pricing measures considered attract only a rather limited degree of popular support (see Figure 5). Even for those measures that were ranked to be most acceptable by the key informants only low agreement from citizens can be achieved. In general, across all the pricing measures considered, only between 20% and 40% of respondents indicate that they support or strongly support the principle of the measures involved. The two extreme cases are France, where only less than 10% of respondents support the principle of an urban road pricing policy (about 30 %, however, agree or strongly agree with an environmental charge) and, at the other extreme, Sweden, where over 55% support the principle of environmental charges and workplace based parking charges.
The results in France may, to some extent, be accounted for by the nature of the French sample, which was deliberately drawn from a population of travellers who had prior experience of existing tolling policies in
Paris, Nantes and Toulouse. This raises two intriguing possibilities; either that the response of the French sample was a form of protest against these existing policies (rather than a true reflection of the acceptability of the policies being considered) or that the response of the French sample was indeed a true reflection of attitudes and acceptance to real pricing measures and that the response of the other national samples (which were made largely in the absence of direct experience of pricing policies) were distorted by a lack of clear understanding of the implications of the measures or by a desire to appear more socially responsible and altruistic than in fact they would prove to be in reality. The highest degree of acceptability was expressed towards interurban road pricing. 41 % of the Dutch and 56 % of the Austrian respondents indicated that they support or strongly support
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

8 the principle of this measure. This is in line with the findings of the key informant survey were in particular the transport providers and users ranked this measure first. It seems therefore that for interurban road pricing public and business acceptability converge. Urban road pricing belongs to the least accepted measures by citizens which is in line with the findings of the key informant survey. It is rather difficult to compare the degree of acceptability for other measures between key informant’s responses and those from citizens since the measures presented in the two surveys are different.
Another general trend that is apparent from the attitudes expressed to the specific pricing measures is that respondents were generally clearly of the view that pricing measures such as urban and interurban road pricing, workplace parking charging, environmental charges and ecological taxes would significantly increase the costs and/or difficulty of car use. Respondents considered in all countries pricing measures as a restriction of mobility for those people without valid alternatives (70 % to 85 % of all responses). However, they are much more equivocal concerning the likely impact of such charges on car use itself, on congestion and on the environment. In particular with respect to improvement of the environment the respondents do not seem to perceive the pricing measures as being effective. Only 20 % to 40 % agree or agree strongly that pricing measures would lead to reduced pollution and improved environment. It is as though, implicitly, respondents were making the assumption that under these circumstances general consumption behaviour would, to some degree, adapt to accommodate higher transport costs whilst preserving broadly similar patterns of mobility and activity participation to those currently enjoyed.
Attitudes regarding spending options and trade-offs between pricing and spending options
Respondents in the UK, the Netherlands, Austria and Germany were asked to indicate their favoured spending options with respect to the various pricing policy measures presented. Respondents were permitted to nominate more than one. We do not present the results here in detail but we can conclude that in all countries and with respect to all the presented pricing policies, respondents’ dominant spending preference appears to be for the money raised by transport pricing to be spent in the transport sector in general, and in particular on improving public transport. Interestingly, this is true both in countries where existing public transport services are generally regarded as good (such as the Netherlands) and in those where they are generally regarded as poor (such as the
UK). This suggests that the preference for spending within the transport sector may have as much to do with notions of fairness as with perceived need or effectiveness.
Further insight into the compensatory relationship operating between different pricing and spending options was provided by the stated preference exercise undertaken by respondents in France and Sweden. Table
3 shows the mean values of the preference scores for each of the two scenarios presented in each of the countries. Although we must be cautious regarding interpreting mean values calculated with such scores (since we have no guarantee that the scale is linear) there are nevertheless some interesting patterns apparent in the data. In the case of environmental charging, it is apparent that in both France and Sweden the acceptability of the different pricing and spending packages appears to be largely determined by the use made of the revenue, rather than the level of charging itself. Not only the pattern, but also the absolute values of the mean scores themselves are very similar in the two countries. This finding may reflect the relatively low level of the charges in question and/or the relatively moderate degree of variation between the different charging levels offered.
In the case of the packages built around urban road pricing, differences are apparent between the responses in France and Sweden. In France, the principal influence on the acceptability of the package appears to be the level of the charge, with packages involving low charges being more acceptable than those with high charges. The use to which the revenue is put seems to be largely immaterial. In Sweden, by contrast, acceptance appears to be (as in the case of environmental charging) largely determined by the use made of the revenues, with packages involving spending on the road network being rated more highly than those involving spending on both road and public transport which in turn are rated above options involving general tax reductions.
CONCLUSIONS
The empirical studies presented in this paper have shown that there is an awareness of transport-related problems, in particular of environmental problems and congestion, on the part of citizens, policy-makers and transport providers. Furthermore, we have found that policy-makers and transport providers seem to understand the relations between objectives of pricing, appropriate pricing principles and use of revenues from pricing better than one would have assumed. However, (and perhaps not surprisingly) the economic principles of efficiency that often underlie transport pricing are not well understood by citizens, and it is indeed far from clear that even if they were, they would be regarded as acceptable. Accordingly increase of taxes and charges are
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

9 liable to be seen as a form of money raising and opposed. .The empirical studies presented in this paper provided more insight into the factors underlying to this.
•
First, we found evidence of a widespread belief that transport is already too heavily taxed. In the focus groups, for example, both car drivers and public transport users stated that car drivers already pay enough or even too much. This is reinforced by a belief that governments are not necessarily always completely transparent or forthright in their motivations for increasing transport prices. This is often coupled with a feeling of resignation and fatalism that governments will exploit their position as monopolists. In general, people do not feel that they have a voice in the decision process on transport pricing.
•
Second, whilst respondents are clear that increases in transport prices will bear heavily on particular groups, such as regular car users, they appear to remain skeptical regarding whether, despite this, the pricing measures will in fact render significant congestion or environmental benefits (due to the likelihood of compensating behavioural adjustments).
•
Third, people consider roads and also public transport as basic public services to which people are entitled.
An important dimension of this issue is also the existence of reasonable alternatives to the mode/route charged. Both the focus group discussions and the citizen surveys have shown that people value public transport strongly but they consider it as too expensive and/or infrequent to effectively replace private transport.
A second overall conclusion is that while there seems to be a general agreement that the price should reflect the real costs of transport divergent opinions exist on the treatment of ‘environmental friendly’ modes.
For example, some key informants suggested that these modes should pay less while others suggested an equal treatment of all modes. The focus groups argued that pricing was aimed at reducing emissions and insisted that therefore all polluters should pay. The citizens expressed a strong agreement for charging lorries higher than cars and for introducing lower charges for “green modes”, however coupled with less support for charging those higher who use roads more than others.
The third overall conclusion is that there are significant differences between different countries in terms of attitudes and potential responses to transport pricing measures. These differences operate in combination with the effects of income and car use to give rise to a very wide range of different views regarding desirable and/or effective pricing interventions. This seems to cast doubt on the viability of a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the specification of pricing principles and measures and puts a premium on national and local decision making.
A fourth overall conclusion is that modifications to well known, traditional pricing instruments were easier to accept than entirely new instruments. Variable charges differentiated with respect to time, noise and air pollution, quality of service etc. are preferred.
A fifth conclusion is that there is a strong preference for spending the revenues raised from transport user charges in the transport sector. However, there are diverging opinions on cross-subsidisation of other modes of transport. In the citizen surveys a slight preference for using the revenues to improve public transport was stated which might be interpreted as the desire of citizens to have alternative transport modes with a good travel comfort if private car travel is made more expensive. Generally, it seems that the issue of revenue use in other modes than the charged one is highly dependent on the concrete pricing package to be analysed. In terms of acceptability it thus seems sensible to proceed with caution on the issues of cross-subsidisation when implementing pricing measures. Whether and to what degree revenues raised with pricing measures will be spent for other modes should rather be decided an a case-to-case basis.
The sixth overall conclusion was that, whilst pricing measures were generally unpopular, their unpopularity can be reduced by a suitably configured package of spending measures, focusing, as indicated above, on measures directly related to improving conditions within the transport sector. Conversely, if the revenues are spent in ways that are defuse and render few immediate or linkable benefits, the unpopularity of the pricing measure is likely to be exacerbated. Our studies have also shown that privacy issues are no major obstacle for introducing road pricing.
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REFERENCES
1. Jones, P.M. Road pricing: The public viewpoint. in B. Johansson and L-G Mattsson (eds), Road Pricing:
Theory, Empirical Assessment and Policy. Kluwer Academic Publishers, London.
2. Verhoef, E.T., P. Nijkamp and P. Rietveld ‘The social feasibility of road pricing’ Journal of Transport
Economics and Policy, 31: 255-276, 1997.
3. Ison, S. ‘Local authority and academic attitudes to urban road pricing: A UK perspective’ Transport Policy
7 pp 269-277. 2000.
4. Thorpe, N., Hills, P. and Jaensirisak, S. ‘Public attitudes to TDM measures: a comparative study’ Transport
Policy, 7 243-257. 2000.
5. Verhoef, E.T. and E. Pels ‘Implementation of Pricing Measures for Sustainable Transport: Investigating
Economic Efficiency and Social Acceptability’ in: W.R. Black and P Nijkamp (eds.), Social Change and
Sustainable Transport, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2002
6. Bartley, B. ‘Mobility Impacts, Reactions and Opinions. Traffic demand management options in Europe:
The MIRO Project’. Traffic Engineering and Control 36, pp 596-603, 1995.
7. Jones, P.M. Urban road pricing: public acceptability and barriers to implementation. In: Button, K.J.,
Verhoef, E.T. (Eds.), Road Pricing, Traffic Congestion and the Environment. Issues of Efficiency and
Social Feasibility. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. 263-284.1998.
European Commission, Brussels, 2001. (see also, http://www.tis.pt/proj/pats/pats.html
).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper is based on work carried out as part of the PATS project, supported by the European Commission.
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the European Transport Conference.
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Figure 1 Factors influencing the acceptability of pricing measures
How important are the following issues for making the pricing schemes more acceptable?
(Median analysis)
Clear pricing purpose
5
4
Same pricing principle for all modes
Favourable pricing level for environmental friendly modes
Earmarking of revenues
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
Compensation measures
3
Protection of privacy
4
3
Transparency of the pricing scheme
4
5
Easines of using the charging system
4
4
EU-wide harmonised introduction
3
4
Stepwise introduction
3,5
4
Others
1,0
Policy-makers
2,0 3,0
Transport providers & users
4,0
1=not important at all 2=less important 3=important 4=very important 5=obligatory
4,5
4,5
5,0
Source : PATS Consortium
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

Figure 2: Most appropriate pricing principle for each pricing/ taxation purpose
Which are the most appropriate pricing principles for each of the pricing purposes?
Coverage of infrastructure costs
Rank 1)
1
Policy-makers
1
Transport providers & users
30%
43%
43%
34%
2
Policy-makers
Demand management
2
Transport providers & users
9%
15%
18%
9%
52%
62%
Internalisation of external effects
2 Policy-makers
3
Transport providers & users
39%
40%
9%
12%
27%
32%
63%
Other purpose
4
Policy-makers
3
Transport providers & users
67% 13%
14%
23%
38%
21%
24%
20%
9%
13%
16%
4%
Revenue raising for general budget
4
Policy-makers
4
Transport providers & users
30%
24% 20%
26%
27%
19% 26%
29%
Average costs including external costs
Source : PATS Consortium
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Average costs without external costs Marginal cost coverage
1) Indicates the median of responses on the question „What are the most easily acceptable pricing purposes?“ Smaller value means better ranking.
Other principle
12
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

Figure 3: Most acceptable revenue spending schemes per pricing purpose
What is the most appropriate and most easily acceptable revenue spending scheme for pricing measures aimed at...
General State budget
1) Covering infrastructure costs
16%
12%
Improvement of public transport
Improvement of cycling and walking 2%
28%
26%
Road improvement
26%
21%
2) Demand management
52%
5%
5%
5%
14%
17%
27%
32%
45%
44%
3) Internalising of external effects
5%
9%
27%
36%
5%
5%
13%
9%
18%
23%
Improvement of rail/combined transport
Improvement of maritime transport
Reduction of social charges on labour
4%
5%
5%
5%
2%
3%
Health care
5%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Policy-makers
Source : PATS Consortium
10% 20% 30% 40% 50%
Transport providers & users
9%
10%
10%
18%
10% 20% 30% 40%
13
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

Figure 4: Mean and median scores for attitude scales
How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements :
M1 M2 M3 M4 M5
AT
FR
DE
NL
UK
SE
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0 1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0 1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0 1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0 1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
E1 E2 E3 E4
AT
FR
DE
NL
UK
SE
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0 1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6
AT
FR
DE
NL
UK
SE
-
-
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
1.0 2.0
3.0
4.0 5.0 1.0 2.0
3.0
4.0 5.0 1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0 1.0 2.0
3.0
4.0 5.0 1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
F1 F2 F3 F4
AT
FR
DE
NL
UK
SE
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
1.0
2.0
3.0
4.0
5.0
1.0
2.0
1 = strongly agree 2 = agree 3 = neither agree 4 = disagree 5 = strongly disagree.
Mean Median
Source : PATS Consortium
3.0
4.0
5.0
14
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

Figure 5: Attitudes to country-specific transport pricing measures
Do you agree in principle with the idea of the following measures?
Workplace
Parking Charge
UK
S
Timedifferentiated public transport fares
Ecological tax reform
D
A
D
F Environmental charges S
UK
Urban Road
Pricing
NL
F
S
Interurban
Road Pricing
NL
A
0%
Source: PATS Consortium.
10% 20% 30% 40% 50% strongly agree agree neither
60% disagree
70% 80% strongly disagree
90% 100%
Share of answers
15
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

Table 1 Common Attitude Scales (asked of respondents in all countries)
Mobility
M1 Good public transport is important for me.
M2 Charging for road use would ease congestion.
M3 Congestion restricts the freedom of movement.
M4
Roads are a basic public service and should be free to all motorists regardless of their ability to pay.
M5 Charging for road use is a threat to my freedom of movement.
Environment
E1 Travelling by car is not good for the environment.
E2 Travelling by plane is not good for the environment.
E3
Lorries are causing more damage to roads and the environment than cars and therefore should pay more.
E4 Less environmentally damaging transport modes should be cheaper to use.
Use of revenues
R1
The government should use the money they get from road users to reduce other road–related taxes.
R2 The government should use the money they get from road users to reduce income taxes.
R3 The government should use the money they get from road users to maintain the roads.
R4 The government should use the money they get from road users to build more roads.
R5 The government should use the money they get from road users to fund better public transport.
R6
The government should use the money they get from road users to fund investments in schools, hospitals and other non–transport areas.
Fairness
F1 Those who use roads a lot should pay more for road use than those who travel less.
F2 People with lower incomes should not pay as much for transport as people with higher incomes.
F3
The government will often increase the amounts that road users have to pay in the form of taxes, tolls and other charges regardless of whether they agree or not.
F4 Road users already pay enough in taxes on fuel and vehicles.
Source: PATS Consortium.
16
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

Table 2
Influence factors
1)
Country
UK
Austria
France
Germany
The Netherlands
Sweden
Summary of Ordered Probit Modelling Results for Attitude Scales Concerning Mobility, Environment, Revenues and Fairness
Statements on mobility Statements on revenues Statements on fairness
M1
+
+
+
M2
–
–
–
–
M3
+
+
+
M4
+
+
+
+
M5
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
Statements on environment
E1 E2 E3
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
E4
+
+
+
+
+
R1
+
–
–
R2
+
–
R3
+
+
+
R4
+
+
R5
+
+
R6
–
–
–
–
F1
–
–
–
F2
–
–
F3 F4
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
Car use
Irregular
Regular
Income
– – + + – – – + – + + – – – +
High
Medium
Low
–
–
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ +
+
Age
18 – 31
31 – 50
> 50
– + – +
+
–
–
Employment
Not working
Working
Work location
Not City
City + – +
1)
The base category of each influence factor, indicated in italics, were constrained equal to zero in the analysis. Variables with a statistically significant effect (at 5 % level) are marked either with “+” or “-” indicating that the respective variable leads to an increase/decrease of support for the attitude statement, relative to the base category.
Source: PATS Consortium.
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.

Table 3 Mean Values of Preference Score for Environmental Charge and for Urban Road
Pricing
France Sweden
Use of revenues Price level 1
+12
€
on the price of petrol
Price level 2
+15
€
on the price of petrol
Price level 3
+18
€
on the price of petrol
Price level 1
5
€
on the price of petrol
Price level 2
7
€
on the price of petrol
Price level 3
9
€
on the price of petrol
3.56 3.41 3.30 3.57 3.48 3.39 Environmentall y friendly technology
Reduce income tax & social security charges
2.81 2.72 2.67 3.04 2.97 2.95
Urban Road pricing
Improvement of the road network
Improvements in road network and public transport
Reducing in local taxes
Price level 1
2
€
Price level 2
4
€
Price level 3
6
€
Price level 1
2
€
Price level 2
4
€
Price level 3
6
€
2.76 2.46 2.20 3.50 3.43 3.35
3.01 2.67 2.34 2.44 2.46 2.50
2.78 2.58 2.28 2.53 2.65 2.66
Source: PATS consortium.
TRB 2003 Annual Meeting CD-ROM Paper revised from original submittal.