Road Pricing, Traffic Congestion and the Environment: Issues of Efficiency and Social Feasibility - Hardcover

 
9781858983653: Road Pricing, Traffic Congestion and the Environment: Issues of Efficiency and Social Feasibility
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1858983657 ISBN 13: 9781858983653
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 1998

Synopsis

The majority of societies are facing a conflict between the increasing levels of road traffic congestion, especially during peak hours and in urban areas, and a decline in the social acceptability of road expansion. This has led governments as well as non-governmental organizations to consider other methods of reducing road traffic. This book examines the efficiency and feasibility of the regulation of road traffic congestion in theory and practice, and within the context of social and political feasibility.

As long ago as the 1920s it was recognized that road pricing offered an efficient means of handling congested road traffic flows. Since then the severity of traffic congestion has increased so dramatically that it has turned the matter from an academic interest into one of the most serious problems affecting urbanized areas and transport arteries today. Increasing transport levels have other important external costs such as environmental effects, noise annoyance and accidents. As a result the need to find effective means of relieving congestion has become an important issue both at the national and local level. This book examines Pigouvian taxes, the most popular policy prescription among economists, as well as considering a variety of other policies which may be more politically and socially acceptable. The contributors discuss alternatives to Pigouvian taxes, as well as congestion and urban development, congestion pricing and road infrastructure investment, and road pricing and urban sustainability.

This important and timely book will become an essential reference source for policymakers at the national and local level as well as academics and postgraduate students interested in transport economics and environmental economics.

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About the Author

Edited by Kenneth Button, University Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, US and Erik Verhoef, VU University Amsterdam

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Publisher
Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd
Publication date
1998
Language
English
ISBN 10 
1858983657
ISBN 13 
9781858983653
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
336
Editor
Button Kenneth, Verhoef Erik