|
Since the early nineties, many studies of the acceptability
of transport pricing systems have been conducted or are still
on the way (on EU-level e.g. MIRO, TransPrice, AFFORD, PRIMA,
PATS, CUPID). The results are rather unanimous: Empirical
findings have shown that in general (public and political)
acceptability of pricing measures is low.
The empirical results raise several questions:
- How to explain the different levels of public acceptance of various travel demand management measures?
- Which factors influence the degree of acceptability? And following from this
- How should a phased approach look like from the point of view of acceptability of pricing strategies?
However, most of the past projects dealt with acceptability
of various pricing strategies by measuring the rates of acceptance
(and of variables behind) with acceptance surveys. But the
predictive value of this approach might be rather low, above
all if the surveys are dealing with hypothetical future
innovations people have no experience with. As 10 years of
practical experience in Norway show acceptance afterwards
might be higher then (hypothetical) acceptability before it
is introduced. One of the reasons behind the scientific problems
of prediction in this field is the lack of a commonly shared
theoretical and methodological framework validly and reliably
describing and explaining the phenomenon "acceptance", its
correlates and important variables behind.
Thus, first aim of the proposed international conference
is a contribution to an interdisciplinary scientific exchange
which covers all relevant aspects of acceptance, integrating
economic, psychological, sociological and political points of
views. One result should be a commonly agreed theoretical and
methodological framework for acceptance studies in different
transportation related fields or at least the discussion of
different approaches on a high level. Second aim of the planned
transport pricing acceptability conference is to deal with the
lack of public and political acceptability, to bring together
the most advanced state of the art and to propose forthcomings
and possible solutions as basis for a phased approach towards
marginal cost pricing. It addresses all institutions and
interested parties who work on this topic within the scope of
implementing innovative measures for the transport sector. An
exchange of knowledge about applied theories and methods shall
be encouraged and therefore build a basis for the future
realisation of valid acceptance studies and of successful
implementation strategies.
The conference should serve among other things:
- to bring together state-of-the-art knowledge,
- to provoke an exchange between different research fields and disciplines as well as between transport experts and academics,
- to stimulate and encourage new and innovative approaches,
- to lead to a well reasoned phased approach and to an intelligent marketing strategy for the implementation of road pricing.
|
