IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/transa/v44y2010i5p359-375.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The urban road pricing scheme to curb pollution in Milan, Italy: Description, impacts and preliminary cost-benefit analysis assessment

Author

Listed:
  • Rotaris, Lucia
  • Danielis, Romeo
  • Marcucci, Edoardo
  • Massiani, Jérôme

Abstract

Starting from January 2008 Milan implemented a charging scheme to enter an 8Â km2 area of the city centre. The term used to denote the scheme is Ecopass, conveying the stated political objective of the scheme: a pass to improve the quality of the urban environment (ECO). The charge depends on the Euro emission standard of the vehicle. The paper illustrates the main features and impacts of the Milan Ecopass scheme, and presents a preliminary cost-benefit analysis. The scheme has been effective in curbing not only pollution emissions, but also congestion, and the result has been achieved with low implementation costs and without major political opposition. The cost-benefits analysis presents an overall net benefit. The identification of the winners and losers of the policy is conditioned by penalty payments. Without including the penalties, the surface public transport users and the society at large are the main winners, whereas car and especially freight vehicle users are net losers.

Suggested Citation

  • Rotaris, Lucia & Danielis, Romeo & Marcucci, Edoardo & Massiani, Jérôme, 2010. "The urban road pricing scheme to curb pollution in Milan, Italy: Description, impacts and preliminary cost-benefit analysis assessment," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 44(5), pages 359-375, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:44:y:2010:i:5:p:359-375
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0965-8564(10)00047-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stewart, Kathryn, 2007. "Tolling traffic links under stochastic assignment: Modelling the relationship between the number and price level of tolled links and optimal traffic flows," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 644-654, August.
    2. Robin Lindsey, 2006. "Do Economists Reach A Conclusion on Road Pricing? The Intellectual History of an Idea," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 3(2), pages 292-379, May.
    3. Hensher, David A. & Goodwin, Phil, 2004. "Using values of travel time savings for toll roads: avoiding some common errors," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 171-181, April.
    4. Mun, Se-il & Konishi, Ko-ji & Yoshikawa, Kazuhiro, 2005. "Optimal cordon pricing in a non-monocentric city," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 39(7-9), pages 723-736.
    5. Safirova, Elena & Gillingham, Kenneth & Houde, Sébastien, 2007. "Measuring marginal congestion costs of urban transportation: Do networks matter?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(8), pages 734-749, October.
    6. Maruyama, Takuya & Sumalee, Agachai, 2007. "Efficiency and equity comparison of cordon- and area-based road pricing schemes using a trip-chain equilibrium model," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 655-671, August.
    7. Vickrey, William S, 1969. "Congestion Theory and Transport Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 251-260, May.
    8. Palma, André de & Lindsey, Robin & Proost, Stef, 2006. "Research challenges in modelling urban road pricing: An overview," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 97-105, March.
    9. Prud'homme, Rémy & Bocarejo, Juan Pablo, 2005. "The London congestion charge: a tentative economic appraisal," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 279-287, May.
    10. Santos, Georgina & Bhakar, Jasvinder, 2006. "The impact of the London congestion charging scheme on the generalised cost of car commuters to the city of London from a value of travel time savings perspective," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 22-33, January.
    11. Mackie, Peter, 2005. "The London congestion charge: A tentative economic appraisal. A comment on the paper by Prud'homme and Bocajero," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 288-290, May.
    12. Eliasson, Jonas & Hultkrantz, Lars & Nerhagen, Lena & Rosqvist, Lena Smidfelt, 2009. "The Stockholm congestion - charging trial 2006: Overview of effects," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 240-250, March.
    13. Georgina Santos & Laurent Rojey, 2004. "Distributional impacts of road pricing: The truth behind the myth," Transportation, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 21-42, February.
    14. Proost, Stef & Sen, Ahksaya, 2006. "Urban transport pricing reform with two levels of government: A case study of Brussels," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 127-139, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moshe Givoni, 2012. "Re-assessing the Results of the London Congestion Charging Scheme," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 49(5), pages 1089-1105, April.
    2. Börjesson, Maria & Kristoffersson, Ida, 2014. "Assessing the welfare effects of congestion charges in a real world setting," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 339-355.
    3. André de Palma & Robin Lindsey, 2009. "Traffic Congestion Pricing Methods and Technologies," Working Papers hal-00414526, HAL.
    4. Timilsina, Govinda R. & Dulal, Hari B., 2008. "Fiscal policy instruments for reducing congestion and atmospheric emissions in the transport sector : a review," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4652, The World Bank.
    5. Kristoffersson, Ida & Engelson, Leonid, 2016. "Efficiency and equity of congestion charges," Working papers in Transport Economics 2016:7, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    6. Raux, Charles & Souche, Stéphanie & Pons, Damien, 2012. "The efficiency of congestion charging: Some lessons from cost–benefit analyses," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 85-92.
    7. Morton, Craig & Lovelace, Robin & Anable, Jillian, 2017. "Exploring the effect of local transport policies on the adoption of low emission vehicles: Evidence from the London Congestion Charge and Hybrid Electric Vehicles," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 34-46.
    8. Mahyar Amirgholy & Hojjat Rezaeestakhruie & Hossain Poorzahedy, 2015. "Multi-objective cordon price design to control long run adverse traffic effects in large urban areas," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-52, August.
    9. Börjesson, Maria & Kristoffersson, Ida, 2012. "Estimating welfare effects of congestion charges in real world settings," Working papers in Transport Economics 2012:13, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    10. Palma, André de & Lindsey, Robin & Proost, Stef, 2006. "Research challenges in modelling urban road pricing: An overview," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 97-105, March.
    11. Ian W.H. Parry, 2009. "Pricing Urban Congestion," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 461-484, September.
    12. Rouhani, Omid M. & Knittel, Christopher R. & Niemeier, Debbie, 2014. "Road Supply in Central London: Addition of an Ignored Social Cost," Journal of the Transportation Research Forum, Transportation Research Forum, vol. 53(1).
    13. Jens West & Maria Börjesson, 2020. "The Gothenburg congestion charges: cost–benefit analysis and distribution effects," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 145-174, February.
    14. Percoco, Marco, 2014. "The impact of road pricing on housing prices: Preliminary evidence from Milan," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 188-194.
    15. Kristoffersson, Ida, 2013. "Impacts of time-varying cordon pricing: Validation and application of mesoscopic model for Stockholm," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 51-60.
    16. Ding, Hongliang & Sze, N.N. & Li, Haojie & Guo, Yanyong, 2021. "Affected area and residual period of London Congestion Charging scheme on road safety," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 120-128.
    17. Chu, Chih-Peng & Tsai, Jyh-Fa, 2008. "The optimal location and road pricing for an elevated road in a corridor," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 42(5), pages 842-856, June.
    18. Georgina Santos & Erik Verhoef, 2011. "Road Congestion Pricing," Chapters, in: André de Palma & Robin Lindsey & Emile Quinet & Roger Vickerman (ed.), A Handbook of Transport Economics, chapter 23, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Souche, Stéphanie & Raux, Charles & Croissant, Yves, 2012. "On the perceived justice of urban road pricing: An empirical study in Lyon," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 46(7), pages 1124-1136.
    20. Hörcher, Daniel & Tirachini, Alejandro, 2021. "A review of public transport economics," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 25(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:transa:v:44:y:2010:i:5:p:359-375. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/547/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.