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Highlights: [•] Willingness-to-pay tolls is partly driven by direct benefits of tolls. [•] Willingness-to-pay tolls is partly driven by the relative costs of tolls. [•] Willingness-to-pay tolls is partly motivated by community concerns. [•] Willingness-to-pay tolls is partly motivated by political and environmental beliefs. [•] This model may apply in Europe as well as the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study investigates the determinants of public acceptability of road pricing and environmental taxation policies. The strength and direction of causal paths between psychological determinants and the acceptability of these policies are measured with survey data from students in New Jersey, USA and London. The estimated models show that a number of well-established psychological determinants provide an explanation for the acceptability of both policies and in both locations despite various differences in the policy scenarios. Scenario fairness appears to be the most important direct determinant of acceptability in both countries. We further verify the effect of “specific trust in government” on scenario fairness and other direct determinants that indicate the important role of government performance for achieving acceptability for these measures. Our findings further suggest that awareness of wider environmental issues, such as climate change, can lead to the support of specific sustainable transport policies, such as road pricing, which do not address climate change issues directly. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Public acceptance is widely recognized as a major barrier to widespread adoption of road pricing in the United States and internationally. Using New York City as a case study, this paper analyzes how Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s 2007 congestion pricing proposal gained widespread public support but was ultimately blocked in the State Legislature. The paper assesses the implications of New York’s experience for pursuing congestion pricing and mileage-based taxes in the United States. A central conclusion from this analysis is that gaining approval of pricing will require changing how motorists view the effect of pricing on them personally. Given the power of even small groups of auto users to block pricing through the political process, pricing proposals need to be perceived as benefiting drivers individually and not simply society at large. The paper discusses approaches to road pricing in light of New York City’s experience. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: In the US, there is a long tradition of toll roads, beginning with the Lancaster Turnpike that was built at the end of the 18th century connecting Philadelphia and Lancaster. There are currently more than 300 toll facilities in the US, which is probably the largest number of toll facilities in the world. These facilities represent a wide range of conditions, from hypercongested facilities in large metropolitan areas such as New York City to toll highways in rural areas. The toll structures are equally diverse, ranging from multi-tier price structures with frequent user, carpool, and time of day discounts; to simpler structures in which the only differentiation is made on the basis of the number of axles per vehicle. The toll rates are typically set by the agencies that operate or own the toll facilities. The rules or formulas by which these tolls are determined are not generally available to the public, though it is safe to say that toll decisions are made taking into account technical considerations, as well as the all important criterion of political acceptability. However, data on toll rates and how they change by vehicle types and by some other attributes are readily available. The overall objective of this paper is to analyze the toll data from various facilities across the US to gain insight into the overall factors affecting the tolls. A more specific objective is to assess—though in a rather approximate fashion—if the tolls by vehicle type, relative to each other, are appropriate and consistent with economic theory. This is achieved by comparing tolls to approximate indicators of road space consumption and pavement deterioration. The literature review confirmed that this is the first time such research has been conducted which is an important first step toward an analysis of the efficiency of current toll policies. The analyses in this paper are based on a random sample of all toll facilities across the US. The toll dataset, which include toll rates for passenger cars, busses, and three different truck types, is assembled mainly from the available information on the web sites of various toll agencies. After cleaning the data, the authors used econometric modeling to estimate a set of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression models that express tolls as functions of independent variables. Three families of models were estimated: linear models, models based on expansions of Taylor series, and models based on piece-wise linear approximations to non-linear effects. The resulting models were analyzed to identify the salient features of current toll policies towards different vehicle types. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highway tolling, an idea that lay dormant for many years, suddenly appears to be catching on. A combination of factors has helped to propel highway tolling into the mainstream. Growing transportation budget shortfalls have been keeping the tolling option front and center before governors, state legislatures, and state transportation officials. The U.S. Department of Transportation has been actively encouraging this posture. Private capital markets, especially institutional investors with long-term investment horizons such as pension funds, have discovered transportation infrastructure to be an attractive investment opportunity. In a May 2003 article titled "It's Time to Take a Fresh Look at Highway Tolls," this author speculated that tolls may assume a dominant role in the funding of new highway capacity, perhaps as early as the next decade. Five years later, that prediction is still on the mark. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]