Road pricing and (re)location decisions households

provided by Research Papers in Economics

Road pricing and (re)location decisions households

ERSA 2005 Congress
Amsterdam

Taede Tillema
Urban and Regional research centre Utrecht (URU)

Utrecht University
t.tillema@ geog.uu.nl

Dick Ettema

Urban and Regional research centre Utrecht (URU)

Utrecht University
d.ettema@ geog.uu.nl

Bert van Wee

Section of Transport Policy and Logistics Organisation
Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management
Delft University of Technology,
[email protected]

Abstract

This paper focuses on possible influences of road pricing policies on residential and work location choices of
households. Road pricing may play a role in both stages of the relocation process: the decision whether or not to
relocate and the choice of the new residential location. On average roughly 5 percent of the respondents
indicated a remarkably high probability of moving to another residential location if a road pricing measure
would be implemented. The probability of searching for another job on the other hand was found to be
significantly higher for all price measures: on average 13.5 percent. The majority of these respondents also
answered that the chance of changing house or work within 2 years (for whatever reason) is considerable.
Therefore, the actual relocation specifically due to road pricing may be considerably lower than the observed
percentages. Important explanatory variables for changing the residential or work location due to the
introduction of a kilometre charge are: the level of travel cost compensation, the size of the municipality, the
type of region (i.e. living in a region suffering from congestion problems or not), and the number of working
hours per week. Specifically in the case of work change, the commuting distance is an important explanatory
factor too. Finally, beside the more personal, work and trip related characteristics, several perceptions and short
term behavioural changes also seem to have a relation with the relocation probability. Furthermore, looking at
the influence of different variables in the actual residential location choice, travel cost (including road pricing)
seems to be an important factor. First of all respondents are more sensitive to travel costs than to housing costs.
In the second place respondents value travel time less negatively than travel costs. Next to travel cost, location
related factors such the type of location and the number of bedrooms seem to be important factors in a residential
location choice too.

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