Urban Road Pricing: Public and Political Acceptability
Routledge Revivals Series

Title first published in 2003. As more and more cities consider introducing urban road pricing schemes, this book describes, compares and contrasts arguments for and against using this transport policy instrument. It investigates the acceptability of various forms of road pricing schemes by examining and contextualising actual schemes and hypothetical scenarios. The resulting analysis provides a sociological theory of acceptability, carefully grounded in arguments about road pricing, which demonstrates how professional discourses diverge from publicly acceptable arguments. It also suggests ways in which consensus can be reached between the various road pricing options.

Contents: Introduction; Review of urban road pricing and its acceptability; The sociological method; Data collection: sampling and interview design; Description of a grounded theory and the open coding stage of the analysis; Axial coding in the development of the grounded theory of the acceptability of urban road pricing; Discovering patterns in the direct-effect strategy; Discovering patterns in the indirect-effect strategy; Discovering patterns in the contribution strategy; Using the grounded theory to decide between area, time and changing structure design options; Comparison of the grounded theory of acceptability recommendations with other research; Conclusion; Postscript; Bibliography; Index.

Martin J. Whittles, Dr, is a Researcher for the Transport Studies Group at the University of Westminister