Browsing by Subject "rajakustannukset"

One idea to optimize the level of congestion is to use the price mechanism to make road users more aware of the congestion externality they impose on others. The basic idea is that motorists should pay for the additional congestion they create when entering a congested road. The economic approach to analyzing congestion policies and traffic congestion can be summarized as viewing a congested road as a distorted market on which travelers demand a service (the use of the road), and supply is defined by the capacity of the road(s). A distortion exists because travel time losses from congestion constitute an externality, individual users typically ignore the implied travel time losses for others and consider only their own travel times when deciding whether or when to use the road. The situation where all prices are equal to marginal cost is often called as a „first-best? situation in the economic literature. The equality between prices and marginal costs secures equality between marginal benefits and marginal costs. For the theorem to hold first-best congestion pricing must be applied on all links of the road network. However, many practical policy proposals foresee implementation of prices on only a limited number of road links. Examples include toll cordons, pay-lanes, and congestion charging schemes in the cities as in London and Stockholm. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how well the congestion charging schemes of London and Stockholm are suited to Helsinki region. The issue of congestion charging is current also in Helsinki region because traffic jams will get worse in the future. The congestion charge is expected to „„reduce congestion, increase accessibility and improve the environment”. Some other measures which are in use today could achieve a similar impact, but not as cost-effectively as congestion charging. This study also evaluates three different congestion charging models (the single-cordon model, the multiple-cordon model and the zone model) that were presented in The Helsinki Region Congestion Charging Study by the Ministry of Transport and Communications (30/2009). According to the Ministry of Transport and Communications the socio-economic benefits of congestion charging would exceed the costs.