Author(s)

C. A. González & F. Robusté

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the subject matter of transport sustainability in urban environments as from an equitable use of the urban road space on behalf of the different transport modes. This paper provides the conceptual and methodological bases for the development of an alternative tool for transport demand management called \“Spatial Rationalization Charge by Congestion (SRC)”, which expresses the percentage of road space destined for private vehicles which has to be transferred to other transport modes of greater environmental efficiency (such as public transport and non motorized modes) according to the internalization of the externalities of the private vehicle. Keywords: transport demand management, road pricing, congestion charge. 1 Introduction The use of the private vehicle enters in conflict with the social welfare, because the externalities that the private vehicle generates exceed largely those of public transport; and more specifically, private transport requires more space on the road network and it generates more contamination per passenger than public transport. From the social point of view, this gives rise to the need of developing tools for the management of the road space, to give priority to public transport. But if public transport is favoured, and there is no penalty for the use of the private vehicle, the demand that public transport could attract from private transport would be replaced by a potential request for the private vehicle. From the point of view of economic theory, the use of prices has been widely defined as the mechanism that guarantees an efficient use of infrastructures. After the pioneer task of Pigou [1], authors such as Walters [2], and Vickey [3],

Keywords

transport demand management, road pricing, congestion charge.