Quantifying responses to changes in the jurisdiction of a congestion charge: a study of the London western extension
File(s)journal.pone.0253881.pdf (660.71 KB)
Published version
Author(s)
Ait Bihi Ouali, Laila
Musuuga, Davis
Graham, Daniel
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
This paper quantifies behavioural responses to changes in the jurisdiction of a congestion charge, with a successive focus on (i) an extension and (ii) a reduction in the size of the charging zone. We exploit the unanticipated nature of both the implementation and removal of London’s Western Expansion Zone (WEZ) as quasi-natural experiments to test whether individual responses to policies are asymmetric. We use the UK Department of Transport Annual Average Daily Flow (AADF) data, which records traffic flows for seven transport modes (including cars, buses, bicycles, heavy and light goods vehicles). Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the introduction of the WEZ led to a 4.9% decline in road traffic flows in the new congestion charge area. These results are robust to different model specifications. HGVs traffic did not significantly change post-WEZ, which indicates that their road demand is price inelastic. The removal of the WEZ led to no significant variations in traffic. This result indicates asymmetry in behaviour with persistent changes in post-intervention traffic demand levels.
Date Issued
2021-07-01
Date Acceptance
2021-06-14
Citation
PLoS One, 2021, 16 (7)
ISSN
1932-6203
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Journal / Book Title
PLoS One
Volume
16
Issue
7
Copyright Statement
© 2021 Ouali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
http://10.0.5.91/journal.pone.0253881
Subjects
Congestion Charge
Traffic
Pollution
Road Pricing
Externalities
Environmental Policies
Urbanization
Environmental quality
General Science & Technology
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e0253881
Date Publish Online
2021-07-01