Data ｜ Congestion charges have been levied in 7 places across the country, and only 10 cities around the world are collecting them. The effect is controversial.
Recently, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Commission said that the relevant municipal departments will further study and demonstrate other policy suggestions such as congestion charges and suburban licenses in combination with the implementation of the overall urban planning. In fact, Beijing is not the first city in China to propose to levy congestion charges. According to the incomplete statistics of interface data, at present, seven cities in China have put forward the idea of charging congestion charges.
Traffic congestion charge refers to the collection of extra fees for vehicles driving on congested road sections during peak hours, and the price mechanism is used to adjust the spatial and temporal distribution of vehicles on urban road networks, so as to reduce traffic congestion on road networks.
Singapore is one of the earliest countries in the world to collect congestion charges. In 1975, Singapore began to implement the Regional Pass Scheme (ALS), and designated 725 hectares covering the most congested area of the central business district as a traffic control area for manual charges. This model was replaced by electronic toll collection system (ERP) in 1998. At present, there are not many countries that collect congestion charges worldwide. According to the incomplete statistics of interface data, in the 45 years since 1975, only 7 countries and 10 cities in the world began to collect or plan to collect congestion charges.
These countries have different charging standards. Among them, Singapore, London and Stockholm are the most typical cities. The charging standards in Singapore and Stockholm are relatively flexible, and the charging amount will be adjusted according to the traffic density at different times, while in London, the charging is based on a unified standard.
The policies of collecting congestion charges in various countries have achieved different degrees of effect. After the implementation of congestion charge in many countries, the traffic volume in the central city has been greatly reduced, people’s travel habits have changed, and the utilization rate of public transportation has been improved. However, in the long run, congestion charges are also ineffective, costly and controversial.
So, besides Beijing, which cities are most likely to levy congestion charges?
According to the China Urban Traffic Report in 2019, Chongqing, Beijing and Guiyang are among the top three cities in the national urban traffic congestion list, and the congestion index of these three cities has increased compared with the same period in 2018. For these "blocked cities", is it a good solution to levy congestion charges?
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