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In 1991 the City of Trondheim introduced a fee for cars entering the city centre. This should raise revenues for the municipality and create an incentive to use public transport.
Trondheim is situated in the middle of Norway*. With about 140,000 inhabitants it is the third city in the country. The number of automobiles per inhabitant amounts to 0.5. Trondheim is a thousand-year-old town which for centuries served as a centre of power in the North Atlantic. Today, Trondheim is known as an international research and development centre with an industrial sector very active in international markets. Trondheim’s geographical location makes it a natural junction between north and south of Norway, land and sea as well as tradition and ingenuity. The areas around Trondheim ensure abundant natural resources. Ocean, land, lakes, rivers and forests provide the foundation for a rich variety of enterprises.
* The State of Norway is divided into 19 provinces (län) ruled by the national government.
An increasing number of cars led to big traffic problems in Norway during the eighties. Increased congestion caused drivers to use small streets in residential areas increasing noise and pollution. To avoid that situation, it seemed to be necessary to construct new roads.
The process was initiated in 1985, during the last stage of preparing a new transportation plan for Trondheim. Actors from the Country Roads Office and some leading politicians co-operated closely in the discussion on how to solve the ever more serious traffic problems, and propagating the need for an extraordinary effort from the citizens. This initiative was followed by a two-year period of public debate, negotiations with national institutions, and studies of different sorts of tariff systems and principles for the use of the revenue. The instrument was finally approved by the City Council in 1986.
The system was put into practice by installing electronic toll stations that register the traffic on access roads to the city centre. In addition to the financial returns from it, benefits in terms of traffic regulation and environmental advantages have been achieved. Furthermore, other modes of transport have been stimulated. Living in the city has been made more attractive with fewer negative impacts of traffic, including the reduction of air pollution.
In the last few decades there has been a growing concern in several European countries about urban congestion problems, environmental impacts of traffic growth, and difficulties in financing new transport infrastructure. The situation causes a number of serious losses for the public and the economy: working or leisure time spent in congestion or waiting for public transport, diseases caused by air pollution, agricultural and forest plants damaged by acid and toxic gases, etc..
In Norway, road pricing was seen as a solution to these problems. In a broader context, the attempt was seen as part of a trend introducing user fees in several public sectors.
The Norwegian Road Law enables local authorities to introduce road-pricing. The revenues have to be used for building roads. It is prohibited to use road-pricing for demand management which means that road-pricing cannot be used to discourage people from driving their cars. The only legitimate purpose for user fees is to raise funds for infrastructure investment. The possibility of time-differentiated fees is a border-case. Official support for the Trondheim scheme rested on the argument that rush-hour traffic is responsible for the need to expand road capacity and consequently should be levied extra. In fact, the local planning and political debate operated on or even beyond the border of the official, national government policy. The room for political action was clearly widened due to the local initiatives and lobbying towards central authorities.
During the second half of the 80s there was an emerging environmental awareness in Norway, urged by the publication in 1987 of the Brundtland Commission report ”Our Common Future”. The environmental agenda emerged even more clearly in the process of establishing the fee structure for the toll ring.
The main objective to establish toll rings in Norway was fund-raising to improve the transport system. This was true for the implementation of the toll ring system of Trondheim as well. The revenues raised are used for road building and to support other modes of transport (e.g. public transport or bicycle). This would be impossible to finance from limited state funds only.
Another objective was to introduce traffic demand management, influencing the mode choice and timing of journeys. This is done by charging citizens for entering the city centre by car only at certain times. They should be motivated to change their travelling behaviour (either by travelling at a different time or choosing another mode of transport). Moreover there are several secondary benefits like improvement of the city centre, traffic safety, urban renewal and economic prosperity.
The system includes time differentiated tolls. The basic toll level amounts to Euro 1.5. This is roughly equal to 10% of the average hourly earnings for Norwegian industrial workers. Heavy cars (above 3500 kg) are levied double. The maximum fee per month is 60 payments or 90 Euro (180 Euro for heavy cars).
There is a slightly higher fee during the morning peak hours. Passing of the toll stations in Trondheim is free for all users after 6 p.m. on workdays and at the weekends. Motorists are levied for each inbound crossing. This rate structure was supposed to influence the travelling behaviour of motorists. They will avoid peak hours and the traffic load will be eased.
In June 1996, the City Council approved slight changes in the pricing system, designed to promote fairness by charging a much larger portion of the motorists and reducing the upper limit of the fees for the most frequent users. The revised toll system was implemented in spring 1998.
Before the opening of the system in Trondheim, much effort was put into information campaigns to explain why the toll ring was necessary to raise money for the transport plan.
The charging system of the toll ring operates with several electronic payment lanes to avoid long queues of cars in front of the stations. The Trondheim Toll Ring (the ”cordon”) was opened in 1991 with 12 toll stations from the beginning, with another 5 being added since then. The system has been limited to a duration of 15 years.
Cars are equipped with an electronic tag. This enables a detection machine to identify the car when passing in a non-stop subscription lane. The tag is free of charge for these subscribers. They get 40–60% discount and have to pay only once per hour, even when passing the lane several times. There is an upper limit for total payment per month and the payment may be drawn directly from their bank account.
The revenues are earmarked for a transport investment package financed by 60% from user fees and 40% from state funds. Of this, 82% is to be used for road building, while the rest is to be invested in public transport, safety and environmental improvement projects. The total package amounts to more than 250 million Euro during a 10 year period.
Environmental concerns influenced the earmarking of revenues, and the Trondheim Package was supplemented by funds for environmental improvements of streets that would be relieved of heavy-traffic.
The Public Roads Administration (PRA) is the institute responsible for the planning of national and regional roads in Norway. The responsibility of the PRA is divided into 19 districts and each district cares for the national and the regional roads of the district. Their budgets have to be approved by the Directorate of Public Roads, which is directly subordinated to the Ministry.
In Trondheim the PRA led and planned the Toll Ring. Members of the city council of Trondheim took part in planning group. Finally, the city council had to approve the instrument. The city of Trondheim is not running the toll stations but is contracting private firms for this. The system of an automatic charging system with unattended toll stations was developed in cooperation with a locally based company that produced the components of the electronic tagging system.
The proposal started a public discussion in which different groups exchanged their views on the proposal. The discussion is summarised below. During the process of decision making a major planning challenge was to secure sufficient support for the toll ring. All the city council debates concerning the tariff system and possible adjustments, revenue disposal and road building, provided opportunities for the opponents to contest the toll ring principle and the Trondheim Package. An anti-road-pricing action group collected 19,000 protesting signatures in a few days to support a city council postponement proposal. The activists also threatened to create jams by using only small coins at the manual pay stations. However, such demonstrations were hardly noticed, and the traffic soon flowed smoothly through the electronic gates.
The planners’ ability to gain continuing support rested on an understanding of the political climate, close cooperation with leading politicians, responsiveness to public involvement claims, and the capacity to deliver results during the process. There were three key interest groups to address, which indicates how hard it was to obtain a consensus.
The mobility interests prefer to solve mobility problems by expanding the road capacity. If road user fees are considered inevitable, their favoured solution is toll roads with a close link between the charging and the benefit from road use. It is easier to obtain backing from these actors when the arrangement is limited in time, and when the local fund raising generates transfers from the State.
The quality of life interests prefer a sustainable transportation system. Levies on the use of private cars are considered a feasible means to reduce traffic and to provide revenue for public transport and environmental improvements.
A third group of public welfare interests believes in a transportation system which is both supporting increasing mobility and environmental issues. Promoting public transport by improving its quality is preferred to restrictions on car use. The demand management effects of the toll ring are nevertheless rated as positive.
The final policy was intended to be a balanced solution: allocating resources to road construction as well as public transport and environmental improvements.
Each city considering road pricing will have to find its own path towards implementation. Public opinion, political system and traffic conditions vary widely. Nevertheless there are some general recommendations, which should be considered from the start.
The most important message is that it is possible to implement road pricing in a Western multi-party democracy. Indeed, in other Norwegian local authorities implementation turned out to be possible even when opinion polls indicated a majority of local citizens is opposed to the scheme.
Urban road pricing schemes affect a number of political goals concerning economic efficiency, mobility, environmental quality, fairness, privacy, and urban development. Interests may overlap at some points so that coalitions are possible.
For instance, environmentalists resist road construction but may support road pricing as part of a restrictive traffic management. The road and car lobby is opposed to additional fees but may back road pricing in anticipation of a better road system. The public transport interests are likely to object to further road investments but may vote for road pricing when promised a share of the revenues. Retailers in the city centre fear losing customers because of road pricing but profit even more from environmental improvement increasing the attractiveness of the central business district, improved public transport accessibility, convenient city parking, and more efficient transport of goods.
Because of the different interest groups with conflicting opinions in Trondheim, the question of how agreement was reached is as essential as what was done. A sense of inclusive dialogue between interest groups was the key, ensuring that the policy was not simply imposed on the city by politicians.
The successful implementation in a medium-sized city with moderate congestion problems strongly suggests the potential for road pricing in more congested cities can be realised.
During August 1991 public opinion polls related to road pricing were carried out. In Trondheim there have been clear majorities of those expressing an opinion agreed with the implementation of road tolls, the agree/disagree splits being 61% to 32%. This was the best result of all Norwegian cities with toll rings.
The results confirmed the assumptions and indicated a small overall reduction in the proportion of commuting trip by car being made during charging periods, and a corresponding increase outside charging periods. Following the implementation, there has been a 10 % decrease in traffic passing the ring both in peak and non-peak charging hours. The traffic increase in the evenings and week-end (when there are no fees) was slightly above 8%.
In 1992 inhabitants of Trondheim with a driving licence and a car were asked to what extent they had modified their own travel behaviour, as a consequence of the toll ring. Overall, nearly half of the respondents (42%) indicated an effect on their travel behaviour, and very few respondents indicated that the toll ring had caused a substantial change in their travel behaviour.
Respondents who indicated that they had changed, were further asked to specify what changes they had made. Nearly half of the commuters who said they had changed their behaviour had switched the mode of transport chosen, with the next most frequent response being the change of the time of travel or the change of route. For shoppers, the predominant response was to change the time of travel, followed by adjustments to the destination and frequency of travel.
Seven years after introducing the toll ring, there are fewer traffic problems in Trondheim. Innovative technical and organisational solutions were invented and are ready for export now. For the local economy and population the system causes fewer external costs: less negative environmental impact, fewer waiting hours for public transport, fewer waiting hours in congestion, fewer delays in transport of goods, etc. In short: the traffic-efficiency has risen.
Norwegian Public Roads Administration Norwegian Public Roads Administration
Directorate of Public Roads District Office South Trondelag
Traffic Engineering Division Traffic Management Division
Mr. Kristian Waersted Mr. Tore Hoven
P.O.Box 8142 Dep. P.O.Box 6064 Postterminalen
N - 0033 Oslo (Norway) N - 7003 Trondheim (Norway)
telephone +47 - 22 07 37 35 telephone +47 - 73 96 91 03
taken from:
First Mover Advantage by Eco-efficiency - local incentives for environment and employment, Guide on economic instruments for local and regional authorities, An ICLEI "Policy & Practice Series" Publication, Including a foreword by Ritt Bjerregard, European Commissioner
Publishers: The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe (CLRAE), Editor: Konrad Otto-Zimmermann (responsible), Authors: Christoph Erdmenger, Sandra Schreckenberger
Paperback, DIN A4, 114 pages, 30 DM
See also http://mail.iclei.org/store1/merchant.ihtml?pid=103&step=4
© ICLEI, Freiburg, 1998