House of Commons Select Committee on Transport: Inquiry into Urban Congestion Charging

INTRODUCTION This evidence, submitted to the Select Committee for its inquiry into Urban Congestion Charging, is based on my research into the subject, and professional involvement in studies of methods for managing the demand for urban travel, over the last twenty years. In the 1970s I was responsible, within the Greater London Council, for their studies of the use of comprehensive parking control, physical restriction of road space, and supplementary licensing (a low technology method of congestion charging) as methods of traffic restraint. At the same time, I was an adviser to the World Bank in its study of Singapore's area licensing scheme which is still the only congestion charging system in operation. In the 1980s I was an adviser to the US Transport Research Board in its investigation of appropriate methods for managing urban traffic, and to The MVA Consultancy in its study of electronic road pricing for Hong Kong. Since 1987 I have been involved, as a director of The MVA Consultancy, in a series of integrated transport studies in London (for the London Planning Advisory Committee), Birmingham, Edinburgh, Bristol and Merseyside, each of which has investigated the role of congestion charging as part of a wider transport strategy. I am currently directing a programme of research, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which is assessing the relative impact on urban road networks of different methods of imposing congestion charging, on their own and in combination with traffic signal control and bus priorities. This research has used Cambridge and York as case studies. In addition, I am currently acting as one of the technical advisers to the Department of Transport's study of congestion charging in London. (Continues..