5: Urban Road Pricing in Norway: Public Acceptability and Travel Behaviour

Norway has a more than half century long history of financing sections of road infrastructure, especially bridges and tunnels in inter-urban areas, by combining road user tolls and public funds. This tradition was for the first time introduced to urban areas by the launching of the Bergen cordon-pricing scheme in 1986. The other two large Norwegian cities subsequently followed the example set by Bergen, and introduced urban pricing schemes, Oslo in 1990 and Trondheim in 1991.

Several cities in Norway have discussed road pricing, and some have decided on specific local systems: Tromsø implemented a local petrol fee in 1990, and in Kristiansand an “amputated” toll ring with only two toll stations was started in 1992. This was expanded to a complete ring in 2000, when three more stations were added.