The effects of road pricing on travel behaviour. The case of Milan

Since urban congestion is a major problem in many European cities, many policies have been adopted in order to face this issue, ranging from road construction and public transport improvement (supply), to softer policies such as low-speed zones or “sustainable mobility” campaigns (Maltese et al., 2010). One of the policies undertaken at the city level is road pricing, usually declined in the form of cordon pricing around the most congested areas. This measure is perceived as radical and difficult to be accepted both by users and, a fortiori, by decision-makers (Gaunt et al. 2007, Glazer 2012, Hamilton 2012). As a result, very few cases of urban road pricing exist in Europe, and they mainly concern the following Northern European cities: London, Stockholm, Oslo, Bergen, and Gothenburg. Nevertheless, since 2007, a road pricing policy (“Ecopass”), has been adopted in the city of Milan (Italy), too. This policy, born as pollution charge in 2007 (Rotaris et al., 2010) explicitly became congestion charge in 2011 (”Area C”), as a result of a public referendum. Within this context the present paper aims to investigate the effects of the “Area C” road pricing measure on the mobility behaviour of the Milan citizens. The data come from the Green Move project, conducted in the year 2012 among the inhabitants of the municipality of Milan (Beria, Laurino, 2013). The database consists of 1,198 observations, and includes demographic variables (gender, age, education and skills), respondent’s address, variables related to the number of owned cars and typology, individual travel patterns, etc. (Beria, Mariotti, 2013). The impact of “Area C” on the respondents’ travel behaviour has been investigated by means of descriptive statistics and an econometric analysis – multinomial logit model – (Train 2003, Marcucci, 2011). The model includes several explanatory variables: from demographic variables, variables related to the number of owned cars, their value and fuel-typology, to the district of residence. Besides, the effect of exogenous variables, such as the perceived increase in oil prices is observed, too. The paper is structured into six sections. The introduction is followed by the literature review on the European experiences of urban road congestion pricing (among the others, Rotaris et al, 2010; Börjesson et al., 2012; Eliasson and Jonsson 2011; Eliasson et al. 2010). Data and methodology are presented in Section three, while the empirical analysis –descriptive statistics and econometric model – is described in Sections four and five. Conclusions and policy recommendations follow