Policy: Integrated Approach

Because there is a risk that congestion charging simply redistributes vehicle use temporally and spatially around a charging zone it needs to be accompanied by a host of other measures. Congestion charging targets vehicle use and therefore policies that support a modal shift from the individual car towards less carbon intensive forms of transport are potentially synergistic. Since urban congestion charging affects dense populations priority should be given towards rapid improvements in public transport. Indeed, evidence from around the world including London, Stockholm and Singapore indicates that congestion charging and related forms of road pricing are considered and implemented alongside a package of other measures that explicitly target public transport (CfIT, 2006a). Complimentary polices will however include efficiency gains, land use planning, soft measures and information distribution. For instance, the success of congestion charging in London is partly due to the package of complementary measures that accompanied the introduction of charging (TfL, 2006; Anable and Bristow, 2007; TRT, 2007).