Economic Impact of Road Works

Thousands of road works are undertaken in London on any given day. These works are undertaken by private sector utilities and the 34 Transport for London (TfL) highway authorities and boroughs in a roughly 50:50 split. London’s main road network combines high levels of demand, often throughout the day, with a high proportion of business travel. When road works take place on this network they impose significant congestion and reliability costs on road users and businesses. A road work permit scheme has just been introduced by TfL, with the aim of improving coordination of road works and therefore, reduce unnecessary road delays. It will also make it easier for authorities to challenge the proposed timescale of individual works. Nonetheless, it seems that the scheme will overall have little effect on traffic congestion caused by road works and will be costly to administer. This paper will provide a quantification of the congestion costs associated with road works in London and the paper also provides recommendations on pricing-related solutions towards giving incentives to improve efficiency in the undertaking of road works. There are three broad objectives for the design of a pricing scheme: (1) Pricing – the price must be lower than the external costs imposed on road users and yet be high enough to bring about behavioral change on the part of utilities and highway authorities; (2) Differential pricing – prices need to reflect variations in congestion by covering particular time periods, locations and/or road types; and (3) Administration costs and simplicity – the system should minimize administration costs and/or build on the administrative system in place for the permit scheme. Any increases in administrative costs need to be offset against the benefits that such a system would bring. The options identified will be assessed against those objectives with any problems or issues highlighted.

• Record URL:
  https://aetransport.org/past-etc-papers/conference-papers-pre-2009/conference-papers-2010
• Corporate Authors:

  Association for European Transport (AET)

  1 Vernon Mews, Vernon Street, West Kensington
  London W14 0RL,    
• Authors:
  • Arter, Kieran
  • Buchanan, Colin
• Conference:
  • European Transport Conference, 2010
  • Location: Glasgow Scotland, United Kingdom
  • Date: 2010-10-11 to 2010-10-13
• Publication Date: 2010

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Tables;
• Pagination: 6p
• Monograph Title: European Transport Conference, 2010 Proceedings

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Economic impacts; Permits; Road pricing; Traffic congestion; Traffic delays; Travel demand; Travel time; Work zone safety; Work zone traffic control
• Uncontrolled Terms: Travel time reliability
• Geographic Terms: London (England)
• Subject Areas: Construction; Economics; Highways; I10: Economics and Administration;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01353854
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Oct 19 2011 12:52PM