ison_enoch_tec_edinburgh_congestion_charge.pdf (776.46 kB)
Implementation issues and the failure of congestion charging in Edinburgh
Stephen Ison and Marcus Enoch look at the reasons for holding a referendum and ask what
the failure to get a positive vote means for other authorities seeking to introduce a charge. In 1998 the UK Government expressed
interest in congestion
charging with the publication of
the White Paper on the Future of Transport
‘A New Deal for Transport: Better
for Everyone’, and empowered local
authorities to do so with the Transport
Act (2000), the (Transport (Scotland)
Act 2001) and the Greater London Authority
Act (1999). But, as yet while a
scheme was successfully implemented
in central London in February 2003, with the exception of a single street in
the City of Durham, there is no other
congestion charging scheme in existence
in the UK.
In Scotland the City of Edinburgh
has been looking to implement a congestion
charging scheme as a way of
tackling congestion for a number of
years, but a recently held referendum
on the issue resulted in a ‘no’ vote. This
article seeks to outline why an instrument
which has the general support of
academic economists in terms of an efficient
market-based instrument did
not find favour amongst those who
voted in the referendum. The following
paper provides a brief background to
the proposed Edinburgh congestion
charging scheme, detailing the reasons
behind the referendum and exploring
the reasons for the ‘no’ vote. Finally it
offers some conclusions.
History
School
- Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering
Citation
ISON, S.G. and ENOCH, M.P., 2005. Implementation issues and the failure of congestion charging in Edinburgh. Traffic engineering and control, 46 (4), pp. 132-134Publication date
2005Notes
This is a journal article. It was published in the journal, Traffic and control engineering [© Hemming Group Ltd] and is also available from: http://www.tecmagazine.com/ISSN
0041-0683Language
- en