DIFFERENT

User reaction and efficient DIFFERENTiation of charges and tolls

funded by the EU FP6,
Duration: May 2006 to April 2008

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In the European Union, levels and structures of transport infrastructure charges vary strongly across transport modes and countries. Some degree of convergence exists but, in the presence of unsolved practical and theoretical difficulties, any such convergence is slow. Moreover, the charging regimes are rarely based on efficiency principles. In this situation, differentiation of existing charges appears to be a sensible first step. DIFFERENT proposes to investigate the possibilities of success for such an approach from a theoretical and empirical perspective.

The theoretical analysis will reveal how much differentiation successful pricing schemes should exhibit, psychology will be added to the research, in particular with respect to passenger transport, in order to complement the economist's perspective on user reactions to differentiated charging. The empirical analysis will focus on estimating elasticities and on case studies for freight and passenger transport on road, rail, water and air in a wide spectrum of European countries. Particular attention will be paid to the effects of price differentiation on revenues, because in many countries there are plans to replace the existing system of tax based infrastructure financing with a system based on user charges.

TRI is co-ordinator of this project, heading a consortium of 13 partners in 10 European countries.

The DIFFERENT project website is at: www.different-project.eu