In this must watch TED Talk Jonas Eliasson describes his experience of introducing congestion charging into Stockholm. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject. It will be 8 minutes well spent!
In many respects Reading shares similar problems with Stockholm. Water means that there are bridges creating bottlenecks. His main points are :-
- You don’t need to tell people how to change their behaviour, they will find their own solutions
- Since congestion is non-linear the 20% reduction in journeys after the introduction of the charge meant a huge reduction in congestion
- People increasingly went from being against congestion charging to being for it after experiencing the benefits
- The congestion only came back after the trial ended. Once the charge was re-introduced the congestion remained stable and significantly lower than pre-charge introduction
What works to solve congestion?
Traffic is awful. It causes pollution. It stressed people out. …So, how do we fix it? According to UCLA’s Michael Manville, there are a lot of proposed solutions, but only one — congestion pricing — really works
More on the alternatives to the MRT
Reading Borough are considering a congestion charge trial
ANPR as a low-cost alternative to the proposed East Reading MRT