Travel behaviour response to UK road user charging.

Road user charging has generated a great deal of interest as a measure to alleviate the increasing congestion in the UK. Acceptability of such schemes has proved a stumbling block. In this paper, acceptability issues associated with the London scheme, the rejected proposals for Edinburgh and a possible national scheme are summarised and linked to political and media influences. Rather than concentrate on widely discussed acceptability, the paper then focuses on the behavioural response of individuals to road user charging schemes. The aim of this paper is to examine individual travel behaviour response towards actual and potential road user charging in the UK. The behavioural response is then linked to wider travel demand management schemes, and how groups of individuals, as population segments, respond. Insights are provided for the policy-sensitive segments of the socially excluded and the business community. Discussion includes possible future developments of UK road user charging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]