Road pricing: Guidelines for analysis and for communication with the public.

TRB’s National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 686: Road Pricing: Public Perceptions and Program Development explores road pricing concepts and their potential effectiveness and applicability. The report has a dual mission: creating guidelines for integrating pricing into regional and state planning processes, and for communicating strategies and engaging affected parties.
“Road pricing is gaining favor as an effective way to cope with a number of issues that are now at the top of the agenda in state and local transportation agencies. Road pricing has strong potential to reduce congestion, address air quality issues, help raise transportation revenue, and address livability and sustainability issues. However, local and state planners need lessons and checkpoints based on the latest experience to evaluate and integrate a full array of road pricing strategies into transportation planning and project development. They also need approaches for addressing public and decision maker acceptability through effective communication if road pricing is to have the best prospects for successful adoption and implementation.”