MEASURING SYSTEM PERFORMANCE OF ROAD USER CHARGING SCHEMES

摘要

Road user charging (RUC) is a relatively new term that embraces all policies that charge for road space. In popular literature the term 'tolling' is often used as a generalisation to cover demand management as well as funding the development and operation of new infrastructure. This confusion extends to the measures by which the performance of charging schemes is assessed. Applying the same measures to schemes that have different policy objectives for the purposes of comparison or to develop a business case for the scheme risks introducing large errors and consequently suboptimal decisions on scheme design and operation. This paper describes the different policy options, their respective strategic objectives and introduces performance measures for each. Common misconceptions are explored and alternative suggestions are made to improve the accuracy by which some performance measures can be compared even if the underlying objectives are different. The techniques are applicable to RUC scheme designers and organisations that wish to assess scheme efficiency and value for money.