CUPID - Co-ordinating Urban Pricing Integrated Demonstrations
Overview
Background & policy context:
In recent years, considerable research has been undertaken into the implementation of urban pricing projects. In reality however many uncertainties remain concerning the terms and conditions for successful implementation. It is clear that large demonstrations are necessary to provide basic empirical evidence on how best to balance some of the critical issues, thereby aiding the identification of appropriate urban pricing policies and the effective design and implementation of schemes.
The main aim for CUPID was to provide an advance state of the art knowledge on urban transport pricing schemes through a European cross level site assessment of city demonstration project results, to produce robust policy recommendations and to widely disseminate the results. An important part of the assessment was the liaison with the demonstration cities as part of the PRoGRESS project and the provision of guidance for other cities interested and willing to take another step towards the introduction of pricing schemes.
Objectives:
- To manage the CUPID project to meet EC task objectives, to a high quality and within time, cost and resource constraints.
- To support the transport pricing demonstration sites to meet EC task objectives to a high quality and within time, cost and resource constraints and to enable the demonstrations to incorporate and test state of the art research on transport pricing in practical trials.
- To achieve continuous and effective outreach of the progress and results from the demonstration sites and of the conclusions of the thematic network experts - to exploit and disseminate results and to build and achieve a wider debate and consensus on urban transport pricing policy options. To make European cities feel it is their demonstration programme, maximising EU added value.
- To achieve maximum input and continuous, effective dialogue with relevant EC national and local transport projects and demonstrations to ensure that participants at the thematic network and demonstration site levels have a continuous intelligence stream with which to develop effective demonstrations, informed debate and concrete policy conclusions.
- To produce an assessment framework based on existing methodologies for designing and implementing the demonstrations and a methodology for assessment and evaluation at local, cross-site and cross-application levels to assess both direct and indirect impacts.
- To support the selection, design, implementation and monitoring of a coherent set of effective demonstrations; to build in the principle of marginal cost pricing at all stages: demonstrations of sufficient size and duration to complete a high quality and wide ranging impact assessment.
- To facilitate a thorough impact assessment at demonstration site level and to co-ordinate a cross-site and cross application assessment at European level to cover all of the relevant issues including user response and acceptance, enforcement, financial feasibility, institutional settings, privacy and technical aspects linked to infrastructure and equipment, wider impacts on EC policy, social and economic effects etc.
- To produce a set of common, coherent policy recommendations, from the demonstration sites and the thematic level, for the implementation of transport pricing schemes in urban areas for broad use by local/regional authorities and to further influence policy development at national and EU levels.
Methodology:
The Rome CUPID/PROGESS Evaluation Workshop in April 2002 agreed upon 11 questions that should be answered by the end of the two projects, as part of the process of providing generic recommendations to European cities. Since the Rome workshop, four further questions have been added (including a question concerning privacy suggested at the Copenhagen workshop). These questions are of two types. Firstly there are eight 'definition questions':
- Who should be charged?
- Where should road users be charged?
- How should road users be charged?
- How should enforcement operate?
- When should road users be charged?
- How much should be paid?
- How should revenue be used?
- How can privacy be ensured?
Secondly there are seven 'process' questions:
9. Why did you start looking at road pricing?
10. What is the best way to introduce road pricing?
11. What is it that is special about your city?
12. Why have things not gone in the way planned?
13. How will you judge whether the scheme is a success?
14. What have you learnt in the process?
15. What are the key factors in your success?
It was agreed that initially a priori answers to these questions would be given, also based on consultation with PROGRESS partners. The evidence provided by the PRoGRESS demonstrations (over the following year) have then been used to revise these answers in order to provide 'final' recommendations. The difference between a priori answers and final answers thus represents what new lessons have been learnt by the PRoGRESS/CUPID projects.
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