Many cities have seen public support for congestion charges increase substantially after charges have been introduced. Several alternative explanations of this phenomenon have been suggested, but so far little evidence has been available to assess the relative importance of these explanations. We study attitudes to congestion pricing in Gothenburg before and after congestion charges were introduced in January 2013. Attitudes to the charges did indeed become more positive after the introduction, just as in previous cities. Using a two-wave postal survey, we are able to separate contributions to the attitude change from a number of sources: benefits and costs being different than anticipated, use of hypothecated revenues, reframing processes, and changes in related attitudes such as attitudes to environment, equity, taxation and pricing measures in general. We conclude that the dominant reason for the attitude change is status quo bias, rather than any substantial changes in beliefs or related attitudes, although some of these factors also contribute to some extent. Contrary to a common belief, nothing of the attitude change is due to benefits being larger than anticipated.

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractIn January 2006, a system for congestion charging was introduced in the city of Stockholm, Sweden. The charging scheme was run in the form of a full scale trial for seven months, after which it was deactivated, awaiting its evaluation and an advisory public referendum. Several parties, including representatives of the scientific community as well as media and special interest groups, have analysed and evaluated the system. A recurring theme in several of these analyses is that the cost to build and operate the system was excessive, compared to costs for other road charging installations.This study revisits some of the key project participants and archive data, to provide a deeper understanding of what were the major cost drivers and whether it can be lower in future installations. The approach taken is to emphasise understanding of the particular circumstances rather than comparing aggregates with other seemingly similar systems. A main conclusion is that the political context, with a tight time plan and very high political risks for all involved, were key factors for the eventual costs of establishing the system.

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Introduction Abundant literature now exists on the acceptability of the new pricing measure represented by urban tolls. However, this literature contains few examples providing a Bpolitical^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. Method 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.Result 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 Conclusion As a consequence, a real-life political analysis cannot be limited to classical Beconomic^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.