7: European Research Results on Transport Pricing Acceptability

Economists have favoured the use of pricing in regulating transportation for decades. Several policy documents at the EU and the national level have adopted this view, but the reality is different. With a few exceptions, urban road pricing is rare. Practical experience shows numerous kinds of barriers to the suggested pricing policy measures. Milne, Niskanen and Verhoef (2001) distinguish between structural barriers which are institutional (e.g. inappropriate legislation and/or organizational structures) and acceptability barriers which are related to particular persons, groups, or organizations. This paper focuses on the analysis of public acceptability barriers.

Several good reasons exist for considering acceptability. Firstly, we live in a democratic society, i.e. societal, political and technological innovations must be introduced via the democratic process and must prevail against competing innovations (cf. Lucke, 1995; Frey & Eichenberger, 1999). Usually they cannot be imposed against public will. Secondly, the acceptability concept stresses the user perspective (Bartley, 1995). It is true that most technological and political innovations might result in societal benefits, but opinions and intentions of the people concerned are often not canvassed when new measures are being considered for implementation. This may lead to “irrational” resistance not only from the people concerned, and ultimately to the failure of an originally useful innovation.