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Considers the different costs of automobile driving. California's imposition of variable pricing on heavily traveled routes; Identification of external social costs attributable to automobile driving, including injury and death caused by accidents, environmental harm, infrastructure costs and congestion; Connection between automobile driving and desirable lifestyle; Factors that may affect future traffic congestion.

Considers the difficulty of charging drivers for the congestion they cause. Singapore's efforts to deal with traffic congestion in economic terms; Impact on traffic movement in the city center; Unintended side effects of government controls.

Discusses the use of intelligent transportation systems, or telematics, which involve application of advanced computing and telecommunications to local driving. Information available to drivers in Seattle, Washington; California software company Fastline's development of systems that real-time information on traffic, weather and mass transit based on an individual starting point and destination; Impact of cheap driving on Seattle's urban sprawl.

The article looks at discussion surrounding the implementation of a national road-pricing scheme in England. Transportation and politics do not mix. Road and rail policy operates on time-spans of a decade or more, offering little electoral advantage to ministers, who are never more than five years away from losing their jobs. So it was nice to see Alistair Darling, the transport secretary, taking the long view last week by restarting the debate on using pricing to reduce congestion on Britain's worsening roads. Everyone agrees that big changes are needed. The problem is not a lack of capacity (most roads are empty most of the time) but the lack of an efficient system for allocating it. A system that charged individual drivers for the costs of increased traffic density, vehicle emissions and damage to the roads would encourage more efficient use of a scarce resource and be fairer to boot.