New York is on the verge of becoming the first U.S. city to charge drivers for entering its busiest areas, but it is following three cities overseas where such tolling systems have become a way of life.
London, Stockholm and Singapore all went ahead with congestion pricing while it was still just an idea in New York, one that stalled for years amid opposition from many commuters and elected officials.
The three cities have become real-life testing grounds for congestion pricing. In each, the policy has proved effective in helping to reduce traffic, ease congestion and cut pollution from vehicle emissions while raising millions of dollars for government coffers. It has also encouraged more alternatives to driving, including new buses and bike lanes.
But carrying out congestion pricing has not been easy and the fees, which have risen over the years, continue to draw complaints from drivers and from civic and business leaders. Now, these cities’ experiences provide a glimpse of the challenges that lie ahead for New York.
Officials in Stockholm, like their New York counterparts, initially faced a public outcry over the city’s tolling system but found that public opinion shifted after many drivers got used to it.
Still, congestion pricing did not simply make traffic disappear. Although London’s fees deterred some drivers at first, gridlock eventually returned to the city, in part because of an influx of Ubers and other ride-hail cars and delivery trucks.
Despite setbacks, all three cities have stuck with congestion pricing — Singapore has charged fees since the mid-1970s — and continue to fine-tune their systems as traffic patterns change and new challenges arise.
“New York should carefully study these other cities,” said Samuel I. Schwartz, a former city traffic commissioner and longtime congestion-pricing supporter. “We can learn a good deal from them in terms of public support, technology, and how we can improve congestion pricing going forward.”
Stockholm: Public opinion changed
When Stockholm tried a congestion tax in its central city area in 2006, many residents and business leaders protested that it would punish drivers and cause stores to close.
But some critics later came around when they saw that congestion pricing had helped unsnarl the streets, city officials said. Traffic fell to about 350,000 vehicles a day in 2006 from about 450,000 vehicles a day the year before, a 22 percent reduction.
The congestion tax was made permanent in 2007 after voters approved it in a referendum.
Stockholm uses a system of overhead gantries and cameras that automatically register vehicles by recording images of their license plates each time they pass by a pay station on weekdays. Vehicles are charged fees that vary by the time of day, with the highest at rush hour, as well as by high or low season. Nights and weekends are free.
There is a cap of $12.90 per vehicle per day during high season, and $10.03 during low season.
“People don’t love traffic signals or speed limits but they accept it as part of the urban transport system — the same is true for congestion pricing,” said Jonas Eliasson, the director for transport accessibility at the Swedish Transport Administration.
The congestion tax, which rose in 2016 and again in 2020, has raised millions of dollars for building roads and highways, expanding the subway system and making other investments in public transit, city officials said.
The initial reduction in traffic has also held up over time, said Maria Borjesson, a professor affiliated with the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute. “Most large cities would benefit from congestion pricing but it’s hard to get people on board,” she said.
London: Congestion returned
London established a congestion zone in 2003 and quickly saw an improvement on its streets. Within a year, the number of vehicles entering the zone dropped 18 percent, according to city officials.
Traffic delays were reduced 30 percent, and the average speed of vehicles rose to 10 miles an hour from 8.8 miles an hour. Air quality also improved as a result of the lower traffic volume, with a 12 percent reduction in emissions of nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from vehicles in the zone.
But the early success eroded in later years as traffic crept back. The streets became clogged with taxis, Ubers and other ride-hail cars and delivery trucks carrying more packages as online shopping surged. New bus and bike lanes also took road space from cars.
By 2016, it was being widely reported that journeys in London were taking longer than in the horse-and-carriage era. Last year, a report commissioned by the city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, concluded that vehicle congestion had risen to prepandemic levels, leading to more gridlock and air pollution.
Public support has also wavered somewhat as the congestion fee has steadily risen. London records vehicles entering the congestion zone by snapping photos of license plates.
Drivers are charged a flat $18.95 a day for driving in the congestion zone on weekdays and part of the weekend, no matter how often they go in and out. That is triple the $6.32 fee that was charged when the program began.
An expansion of the congestion zone in 2007 was later scrapped in the face of public opposition.
London’s experience shows that congestion pricing is not a silver bullet, said David Metz, an honorary professor at the Center for Transport Studies at University College London. By reducing traffic and delays, he said, it created more favorable road conditions that, in turn, attracted back drivers “so from this perspective, congestion is essentially self-regulating.”
“In a prosperous city like London with a lot of business users you would need a very high charge to get a long-term reduction in congestion,” Professor Metz said.
Singapore: A learning process
Singapore has used congestion pricing since the 1970s, but it has been a learning process. The city has fine-tuned and modernized its tolling system continuously over the years to make it more flexible and efficient.
Currently, vehicles, which are equipped with electronic units that register the fees, are charged whenever they pass under a network of nearly 80 gantries concentrated in the main business district and along major highways.
The fees vary based on the road and time of day and are periodically adjusted in response to traffic conditions, with the price going up when there is congestion and down where there is not. Fees now range from 37 cents up to $4.49, with no fees charged at all outside of congestion times and on Sundays and public holidays.
In recent decades, congestion pricing has helped keep traffic flowing while maintaining travel speeds on streets and expressways even as a significant increase in vehicle ownership through 2018 brought more cars to the city, said Walter Theseira, an associate professor of economics at Singapore University of Social Sciences.
But congestion pricing alone did not accomplish that, he added, and was used alongside other measures, including a quota system for private vehicles that requires potential car owners to bid for one of a limited number of so-called certificates of entitlement before buying a car.
The city’s congestion-pricing system continues to evolve, with the physical gantries in the process of being replaced by a satellite-based system. The new technology could allow Singapore to charge drivers in more ways in the future — although there are no plans at the moment — including by the actual distance they travel or in areas not covered by gantries.
In comparison, New York’s tolling system, which is still being set up and will simply charge a flat fee to go in and out of the congestion zone, has a long way to go.
But “even though that system is by today’s standards pretty primitive, it is much, much better than not doing anything at all,” Professor Theseira said.