Exploring the feasibility of tradable credits for congestion management

Abstract

Tradable credits for congestion management are a novel policy concept that is receiving increased interest in transportation research. This interest is mainly driven by the belief that the concept can count on stronger social support and hence has a better prospect for implementation than charging-based instruments. This paper is the first to provide an analysis of the social, political, economic and technical feasibility of this concept. To this end, policymakers and researchers from the field of transport have been interviewed. The results reveal so many barriers and challenges in the social and political context that some seem insurmountable, which exposes a difference with expectations formulated in the literature. We reflect on possible options to overcome or avoid barriers but conclude that the concept of tradable peak credits lies very far from the current way of thinking about road use and seems unable to compete with more established charging schemes.

MobilityCoins -- A new currency for the multimodal urban transportation system

“…As mobility TPs have an artificial market, their design may impact the final equilibrium (Nie, 2012) and thus their ability to reach the target. Basic public support for a mobility TP scheme is found to be 25%-30% (similar to that for road pricing), with those opposing it generally not favoring any similar policy instrument (Kockelman and Kalmanje, 2005;Krabbenborg et al, 2021).…”

Conceptualizing an individual full-trip tradable credit scheme for multi-modal demand and supply management: The MobilityCoin System

“…In theory, TCS proved successful in achieving a congestion reduction goal (Yang and Wang, 2011;de Palma et al, 2018), and could support in meeting climate change targets (Musso and Rothengatter, 2013). Nevertheless, Krabbenborg et al (2021) note that a TCS for mobility is still far from applying to our current mobility system, while at the same time describing it as a promising (theoretical) instrument (Lindsey and Santos, 2020).…”

“…Kockelman and Kalmanje (2005) states that acceptance of the system is strongly related to the knowledge about the system. The social, political, economic and technical feasibility of TCS for congestion management is analyzed by Krabbenborg et al (2021). Seilabi et al (2020) assessed travel demand management for an autonomous vehicle enabled TCS and lane management strategies to minimize total travel time under user equity constraints.…”

“…A starting point for the identification of relevant parameters are expert interviews (Krabbenborg et al, 2021;. These allow to derive reasonable temporal and spatial system boundaries as well as important variables in the initial credit allocation function.…”

Combining Tradable Credit Schemes with a New Form of Road Pricing: Producing Liveable Cities and Meeting Decarbonisation Goals

“…TCS can produce more efficient results compared to traditional pricing and taxation approaches, which produce unpredictable numbers of vehicles on the roads: "you have the success that you need, because you don't allocate more credits than you think is acceptable" (E1) With a congestion charge, the price is controlled instead of the car use. A tradable credit scheme is effective in reducing car use, since the cap guarantees the predefined reduction in car use [51].…”