Is It Time to Implement Road Charges in Budapest? Iuliia MARUKHA
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Is it time to implement road charges in Budapest? Early mover risks and advantages in fighting urban congestion Iuliia MARUKHA Supervisor Zoltan Illes A thesis submitted to the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy of Central European University in part fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Science CEU eTD Collection Budapest, 2018 Notes on copyright and the ownership of intellectual property rights: (1) Copyright in text of this thesis rests with the Author. Copies (by any process) either in full, or of extracts, may be made only in accordance with instructions given by the Author and lodged in the Central European University Library. Details may be obtained from the Librarian. This page must form part of any such copies made. Further copies (by any process) of copies made in accordance with such instructions may not be made without the permission (in writing) of the Author. (2) The ownership of any intellectual property rights which may be described in this thesis is vested in the Central European University, subject to any prior agreement to the contrary, and may not be made available for use by third parties without the written permission of the University, which will prescribe the terms and conditions of any such agreement. (3) For bibliographic and reference purposes this thesis should be referred to as: Marukha, I. 2018. Is it time to implement road charges in Budapest? Early mover risks and advantages in fighting urban congestion, Master of Science thesis, Central European University, Budapest. Further information on the conditions under which disclosures and exploitation may take place is available from the Head of the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University CEU eTD Collection ii Author’s declaration No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. Iuliia MARUKHA CEU eTD Collection iii Abstract of thesis submitted by: Iuliia MARUKHA for the degree of Master of Science and entitled: Is it time to implement road charges in Budapest? Early mover risks and advantages in fighting urban congestion. Month and Year of submission: August, 2018. Urban roads are experiencing increasing traffic volumes in many cities around the globe. Increasing traffic volumes not only cause time and speed losses, they cause a wide range of motor vehicle externalities. Namely, dangerous air pollution which affects health of the population, emission of greenhouses gasses, soil and water contamination, noise pollution, ecosystem fragmentation. A considerable research has been conducted on the mechanism of road pricing, aimed to regulate demand on urban road space. This study firstly aims to understand why – despite its evident economic and environmental benefits – this mechanism has mostly developed in theory. This will be complemented with the analysis of the other possible mechanism to tackle congestion. Next, a case study research of the application of this mechanism in the EU will be conducted. It is suggested that Budapest could became the next European capital to implement a road pricing mechanism. Prerequisites required for this are strong political will and effective stakeholder collaboration. There are valuable lessons from London and Stockholm cases to take into consideration when developing the Budapest scheme. However, it is also argued that prior the implementation, a comprehensive traffic monitoring system should be established. Subsequently, this will develop evidence and feasibility of the scheme. It appears that public acceptance raises when discourse concentrates around the health and environmental benefits, rather than technical infrastructure improvements. This paper analyses options for road charging schemes and suggests implementation of the dynamic elements to the model. This approach hasn’t yet been implemented in any urban area, but it can overcome drawbacks of the fixed pricing schemes. Keywords: urban traffic congestion, vehicle emissions, congestion pricing, Budapest road pricing CEU eTD Collection iv To Budapest and those who don’t give up » CEU eTD Collection Is it time to implement road charges in Budapest? Early mover risks and advantages in fighting urban congestion Table of Contents LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................................... VIII LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................................... IX LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ......................................................................................................................... X 1 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 A PRESSURE OF GROWING TRAFFIC IN URBAN AREAS ........................................................................ 1 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVES .......................................................................... 1 1.3 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK .................................................................................................................. 3 1.4 THESIS OUTLINE ...................................................................................................................................... 5 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................................. 7 2.1 WHAT IS DRIVING URBAN ROAD CONGESTION .................................................................................. 7 2.2 THREE-DIMENSIONAL DEFINITION OF CONGESTION ....................................................................... 9 2.3 THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF TRAFFIC CONGESTION ........................................................... 10 2.3.1 An anthropocentric perspective ............................................................................................................. 11 2.3.2 Traffic-born air pollution..................................................................................................................... 12 2.3.3 The broader look at vehicle emissions ................................................................................................... 14 2.3.4 Free-flow traffic mode .......................................................................................................................... 15 2.3.5 Vehicle emissions in congestion ............................................................................................................ 16 2.4 WHY NEW ROADS WILL NOT SAVE THE DAY ..................................................................................... 18 2.5 URBAN ROADS ARE YET ANOTHER TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS .................................................. 21 2.6 THE CASE FOR ROAD USER CHARGES ................................................................................................. 24 2.6.1 Road pricing schemes ........................................................................................................................... 25 2.6.2 Technologies for road pricing ................................................................................................................ 27 2.7 TO THE QUESTION OF EQUITY IN URBAN MOBILITY ........................................................................ 29 2.7.1 Horizontal equity of road pricing ......................................................................................................... 29 CEU eTD Collection 2.7.2 Vertical equity of road pricing ............................................................................................................. 30 2.8 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................................................... 31 3 METHODOLOGY ...................................................................................................................................... 33 3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN ................................................................................................................................ 33 3.2 METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION ...................................................................................................... 34 3.3 METHODS OF DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................. 35 vi Iuliia Marukha, Central European University 3.4 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS ...................................................................................................................... 35 4 CASE STUDIES ............................................................................................................................................ 37 4.1THE EUROPEAN UNION FRAMEWORK FOR ROAD CHARGING ........................................................ 37 4.1.1 Road charging for trucks is a success .................................................................................................... 39 4.2 LONDON CONGESTION CHARGING SCHEME .................................................................................... 40 4.3 STOCKHOLM CONGESTION CHARGE .................................................................................................. 43 POINTS OF INTEREST FOR BUDAPEST CONTEXT ...................................................................................