Preparatory Project Essay Example for Free

Preparatory Project Essay Traffic congestion in cities is a problem throughout the world. Evaluate the effectiveness of one official initiative undertaken to tackle this issue Traffic congestion is a condition on the road when traffic jams are bad and no movement is possible. The main causes of the traffic congestion are: traffic incidents, road works, weather events and constant traffic flow. It negatively impacts on the environment by causing a growth in the level of air pollution. Time wasted in traffic is the reason for delays which negatively affect stability and discipline in education, work and economy. For example, late delivers of goods to market consequently affects sales and produces losses in revenues. Eventually, because of the budget deficit business goes bankrupt. According to Texas Transportation Institute’s Urban Mobility Report only in the USA daily travelers lose 1 day plus 10 hours per year as a result of congestion on roads and in 2 decades average amount of congestion has increased by 380 %( Forbes 2011). Although this problem is worsening every year there are some examples when official policies struggled against this dilemma. Different municipal governments use various methods to deal with traffic congestion. For example, in the Netherlands and Mexico City local authorities applied cycling promotion. Another method to reduce congestion is road charging in special restricted areas which was implemented in Singapore, Stockholm and London. The London Congestion Charge (LCC) is one of the well-known models of road pricing, so further content of this essay will focus on it. This essay will evaluate effectiveness of the LCC program which was undertaken by municipal government of London to tackle traffic congestion using identified criteria: the improvement of public transport services, results in reducing traffic level, gained revenues and the way they were used. Firstly I will describe working principles of the LCC. Following paragraph discusses predicted and actual results of drop in traffic congestion. Then I will show how the LCC affected public transportation system. Finally, the use of gained revenues to improve public transport will be evaluated. The LCC was officially introduced on 17th February 2003 by Transport for London (TfL) under direction of Mayor Ken Livingstone (Li et al. 2012, 366). Before the official launch of this scheme studies like Road Charging Options for London in 2000 (ROCOL) were provided to get an important information on traffic levels, and it said that by implementing 5  £ charge zone and using revenues to improve transport system congestion could be reduced.(Livingstone 2004, 491-93). These are general concepts of the scheme: pay fee is 10  £; it operates from 7.00 am to 6.00 pm in working days and mostly covers area known as â€Å"Central London†. Buses, motorcycles, licensed taxis, alternative fuel, invalid-designed and emergency vehicles are not oblig ated to pay charge (Litman 2011). The zone is monitored with cameras, and symbols with signs are displayed on it to notify commuters. There are miscellaneous methods to pay it such as: internet, telephone, text messaging and through TfL. Overall, mainly due to technologies system worked properly and almost no complaints were made by commuters. However, it has drawbacks because the fee doesn’t depend on travelled distance and during congested periods the amount of fee remains same. First of all, the main priority of the congestion charge was to reduce traffic level. ROCOL predicted that after implementation there will be average decrease by 10-15 % in travelled miles. Reduction in miles thought to raise average speed from 9.9 to 11.2 mph, and drop in private car trips expected to be by 20 %.(ROCOL 2000 quoted in Leape 2006, 164 ). Overall, results were positive and met expectations. The decline of travelled distance in charged zone was about 15 % (Prudhomme Bocarejo 2005, 1). There was a growth by 37% in average traffic speed (Litman 2011). The reduction of potentially chargeable vehicles in charged area was 27% (Leape 2006, 165). From the information below it is clear that there is a significant drop in traffic level. On the other hand, mostly all information on traffic levels comes from TFL reports, but it is the governmental organization so we cannot consider TFL as absolutely neutral institution. In addition the LCC affected congestion just inside the charged zone but not in whole London. Secondly, the priority of the congestion charge was â€Å"to make radical improvements in bus services† (Livingstone 2004, 495) and increase the number of bus users. The raise in the number of bus passengers was 18% in 2003 and 12% in 2004 and it remained same next years (Santos 2008, 192). The TFL affiliate excess waiting time with weakness of service, and it fell by 30% and 18% in first 2 years (Santos 2008, 192). The LCC caused a growth by 7% in bus speed (Prudhomme Bocarejo 2005, 6). Moreover, extension of bus lane system and new purchased buses from revenues also improved service. It can be concluded that the development of service and reallocation of road space to busses effectively switched people to use public transport more. Thirdly, municipal government of London planned to use gained revenues to improve public transport system. The TFL predicted to gain revenues between 130-150 million  £ (Leape 2006, 169).In fact, results showed that expectations were too exaggerated: net revenues brought less than 50% of predicted sum. The key factor for failure to get more profit was that congestion charge provoked unexpected reduction in number of potentially charged vehicles. However, as it was planned, maintained money from the charge was spent on enhancement of bus networks within road safety, and to popularize walking and cycling (Leape 2006, 170). Furthermore, revenues were invested to buy new 250 busses to develop bus network system (Prudhomme Bocarejo 2005, 7). It is obvious that incomes were used to develop transport system as it was projected. Additionally it was politically important to use money in that way to maintain support for the LCC from citizens. To sum up, in spite of political debates on implementation of the LCC, the action taken by local authorities of London generally accepted as a political and technical success. There is a significant reduction of traffic congestion in charged zone. On the other side, a decrease of traffic in this area couldn’t impact completely on congestion in all London. Revenues gained from charge were spent on enhancement of public transport which caused a popularization of the scheme. The idea of road pricing in London was politically implemented and positively accepted by public, even it is not a popular method to tackle congestion. However, there is a still big question in its efficiency to dramatically change situation on all city roads, so policymakers must think how to enhance system to reduce congestion drastically in the city. Reference list: Forbes.2011. â€Å"Escape the Cost and Lost Time of Traffic Congestion†. Accessed October 30, 2012. http://www.forbes.com/sites/tombarlow/2011/10/22/escape-the-cost-and-lost-time-of-traffic-congestion/ Leape, Jonathan. 2006. â€Å"The London Congestion Charge†. Journal of Economic Perspectives 20 (4):157-76. Litman, Todd. 2011. â€Å"London Congestion Charging†. Victoria Transport Policy Institute. http://www.vtpi.org/london.pdf Li, Haojie, Daniel J. Graham, and Arnab Majumdar. 2012. The effects of congestion charging on road traffic casualties: A causal analysis using difference-in-difference estimation. Accident Analysis Prevention 49: 366-377. Livingstone, Ken.2004. â€Å"The Challenge of Driving Through Change: Introducing Congestion Charging in Central London.† Planning Theory Practice 5(4):490-98. Accessed October 25, 2012. doi: 10.1080/1464935042000293224 Prud’homme, Rà ©my, and Juan Pablo Bocarejo. 2004. The London Congestion Charge: A Te ntative Economic Appraisal. Transport Policy 20:1-9. Santos, Georgina. 2008. â€Å" London Congestion Charging†. Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs (9):177-207.