CURACAO - Coordination of Urban Road-User Charging Organisational Issues
Overview
Background & policy context:
One of the most difficult problems that modern day cities face is traffic congestion, and congestion continues to be a significant factor affecting the quality of life in today's cities. Traffic congestion can be caused by:
- many people living and working in the city;
- more people owning and using cars;
- a shortage of off-street parking, so that cars are parked on the roads instead;
- people not using public transport, either because it is less convenient, too expensive or not available.
These trends can be addressed by using a set of policies and measures aimed at reducing and rationalising transport demand on a network, or part of it, in order to reduce traffic congestion. One of the possible solutions for reducing the problem of traffic congestion in cities is Road User Charging (RUC) or more simply, road pricing. Examples include traditional methods such as turnpikes and toll roads, as well as more modern schemes employing electronic toll collection such as the London congestion charge,Singapore's Electronic Road Pricing, the congestion charging scheme in Stockholm or the Limited Traffic Zone in Rome.
While RUC has a great potential for reducing congestion in cities, it can be very difficult to implement as it has to accommodate the interests of various stakeholders, including national and local governments, road users, citizens and businesses.
This shortfall (between the potential of road pricing and the progress of its actual implementation) is the focus of the CURACAO project, which builds on the work of CUPID, PRoGRESS and EUROPRICE, in the field of urban road pricing. The project will ensure continuity from FP5 projects, but also brings in new partners with new ideas to widen the geographic and intellectual scope of the initiative.
Objectives:
The overall objective of the project was to co-ordinate research and monitor the results of the implementation of road user charging as a demand management tool in urban areas.
The strategic objectives of the project were:
- to co-ordinate the synthesis, appraisal, and reporting of research activities, case studies and other initiatives in the field of urban road user charging;
- to compare and contrast different approaches to urban road user charging such as tolling, distance-based pricing and charges for infrastructure and parking;
- to facilitate the exchange of information, raise awareness and disseminate and promote research results and best practice at a European, national, regional and local level;
- to maintain the sound knowledge base, established by the CUPID, PRoGRESS and EUROPRICE projects to support decision-making and integration of research results into policies;
- to ensure that the work undertaken to achieve these objectives is responsive to the needs of potential end-users, notably city decision-makers
The main result of CURACAO is the development of a generic urban blueprint that can serve as a catalyst and enabler for the implementation of road pricing in European cities.
Methodology:
CURACAO's goal was to facilitate the exchange of information, raise awareness and disseminate and promote research results and best practice at a European, national, regional and local level with a focus on the transfer of best practice from the leading cities to other cities across Europe. This involved identification, exchange and dissemination of best practices, setting up of an information and contacts database, as well as the organisation of external workshops, and participation in conferences and other events. All project related information is accessible through the project website.
CURACAO'S target audiences range from cities where pricing schemes are already in place to those engaged in a fact finding exercise.
The following end user groups were identified:
- cities already having a pricing scheme;
- cities planning / preparing scheme implementation;
- cities seeking information;
- researchers.
A group of 20 cities planning for implementation were invited to join a User Group. The User Group was invited to attend CURACAO workshops and is chaired by Bristol City Council, who coordinated both PROGRESS and EUROPRICE, and provides input to the direction of the project. The members of the user group are selected through a User Needs Assessment questionnaire aimed at identifying the needs of decision makers and technical experts in cities. Other cities can benefit from CURACAO dissemination activities through email and the website.
Cities from the different user groups have different needs for outputs of the CURACAO project and thus there is a number of products to be created during the project:
- state-of-the-art reports based on the latest research findings;
- guiding paper on good practices (a handbook to support decision makers in the design and implementation of road pricing measures);
- policy recommendations;
- targeted fact sheets (e.g. on possible impacts and overcoming barriers);
- final report providing guidelines on successful implementation of RUC;
- online searchable good practices database, which will contain facts and figures on scheme specification, processes, impacts, barriers and solutions from the CURACAO case studies);
- PR materials (such as a brochure, power point presentation and poster) and 5 project newsletters with an FAQ section on the website;
- a categorised contact database containing key stakeholders from the target groups.
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