Road pricing demonstrations project – introduction
Technical research project to establish how a road pricing system by time, distance and place could operate.
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The demonstrations project was a technical research project designed to establish how any system of road pricing by time, distance, place (TDP) could operate reliably, accurately and affordably while safeguarding privacy. The project did not seek to address the wider merits or otherwise of road pricing.
At the time of the project’s inception in 2007 under the previous administration, most existing road pricing or charging systems worked on the basis of a single event, ie paying a toll to use a road, bridge or tunnel, or for driving within a certain area such as the London Congestion Charge zone.
This project set out to test whether technology existed to target congestion more effectively, by where it occurs and when. To do this in a fair and effective way required more advanced technology and systems than were then being used in the UK, and these needed to be rigorously tested before any conclusions could be drawn.