Road user charging is used as an 'umbrella' term to describe a wide range of
applications of pricing roads and infrastructure. Road user charging includes a number of
charging measures that governments and other road owners use to: i) finance new or maintain existing road infrastructure ii) manage traffic (e.g. reduce congestion) iii) minimise environmental impacts of transport iv) internalise the external costs of road transport caused, e.g., by pollution and noise emissions.
Historically, the common approach to charging for road use is some form of general
taxation rather than differentiated road user charging. Road user charging has long been
proposed as an efficient and equitable method to pay for road use and to fund road
infrastructure projects. However, there is an important distinction between charging for
revenue generation purposes as opposed to pricing roads to provide congestion relief. The
two basic objectives, revenue generation and congestion management, differ in several
ways, as shown in the following table.
