Congestion tax in Gothenburg, Sweden

[cpzilliacus]

AFP via Yahoo!: Sweden's Gothenburg to introduce tolls to cut traffic

Sweden's second city Gothenburg will introduce a road toll on January 1 for all motorists entering or leaving the city, similar to one already in place in the capital Stockholm.

The system, aimed at financing infrastructure investments, reducing greenhouse gases and cutting traffic in Gothenburg's city centre by around 15 percent, will include some 40 toll stations around the city.

A similar system introduced in Stockholm in 2007 has led to a 15-18 percent reduction of traffic in the city centre, Eva Rosman of the Swedish Transport Agency told news agency TT on Sunday.

[Chris]

Unlike Stockholm, through traffic in Göteborg (Gothenburg) does have to pay tolls. The E4 in Stockholm is exempt from the congestion charge, but E6 in Göteborg is not, while there is no alternative route available.

The tolls are not charged for non-Swedish car owners for the time being.

Most of the toll revenue is directed towards transit projects, most significantly a six kilometer (4 mile) railroad tunnel under the center.

A major difference between Stockholm and Göteborg is that the Stockholm charge is really only the old town, while in Göteborg it is a much larger part of the urban area, including industrial areas and port areas. As city centers in Europe have a smaller part of urban employment than in the U.S., there is not as much traffic, so a 10 - 15% decline may mean only a few thousand vehicles in practice. In Göteborg's case there is a larger area included, so it is doubtful whether traffic will be supressed in the long term as much as it did in Stockholm. Usually newspapers report about the large declines during initial implementation, but over time traffic volumes are slowly nearly back to pre-congestion charge levels. The Milan traffic reduction zone had no measurable impact on air quality because mopeds were excluded.

[cpzilliacus]

Unlike Stockholm, through traffic in Göteborg (Gothenburg) does have to pay tolls. The E4 in Stockholm is exempt from the congestion charge, but E6 in Göteborg is not, while there is no alternative route available.

From the map, it appears that E20 is also subject to the tax.  E20 comes in from the north and east (from Stockholm), then joins E6 and heads south as a multiplex with E6 all the way to Malmö, where E20 crosses the Øresund Bridge-Tunnel to Denmark.

The tolls are not charged for non-Swedish car owners for the time being.

Just like Stockholm.  And Stockholm has several intermodal (seaport) facilities inside the cordon for carrying traffic across the Baltic to Finland and Estonia, so there a lot of non-Swedish traffic there.

Most of the toll revenue is directed towards transit projects, most significantly a six kilometer (4 mile) railroad tunnel under the center.

Here is a brochure (in English, .pdf format) that describes what the revenue will be spent on:
http://www.trafikverket.se/PageFiles/31267/the_west_swedish_agreement_okt2012.pdf?si=DF1C2D3D80302B978CAB7C0E192FAC9A&rid=1962845746&sn=trafikverketse

A major difference between Stockholm and Göteborg is that the Stockholm charge is really only the old town, while in Göteborg it is a much larger part of the urban area, including industrial areas and port areas.

I disagree regarding Stockholm, though this is a matter of semantics, I think.  The so-called Old Town (Gamla Stan in Swedish, where the Royal Palace is located), is a very small island.  But the congestion tax cordon surrounds "the city" as it was in about 1900 or 1910.  It does exclude what Stockholm residents call "the suburbs," even though most of the southern and western  suburbs of Stockholm are within the corporate limits of the municipality of Stockholm (similar to U.S. cities like Houston, Texas and  Los Angeles, California, where huge parts of "suburban" areas are within the city).

As city centers in Europe have a smaller part of urban employment than in the U.S., there is not as much traffic, so a 10 - 15% decline may mean only a few thousand vehicles in practice. In Göteborg's case there is a larger area included, so it is doubtful whether traffic will be supressed in the long term as much as it did in Stockholm.

Like the U.S., much of the employment growth in the EU nations has been in areas considered "suburban." 

We will find out about traffic reduction, won't we?

But don't discount the benefit of even a small reduction in vehicle trips.

Usually newspapers report about the large declines during initial implementation, but over time traffic volumes are slowly nearly back to pre-congestion charge levels.

Last I read about Stockholm said that some reduction in traffic crossing the cordon has increased somewhat, but is still less than pre-tax levels of 2005.

The Milan traffic reduction zone had no measurable impact on air quality because mopeds were excluded.

Mopeds, with those 2-stroke engines, are very dirty in terms of particulate and NOX emissions.

[Duke87]

The charge is to be paid between the hours of 6:00 am and 6:29 pm. The holiday month of July will be free, as are evenings and weekends.

Wow, a whole month with no tolls?

[cpzilliacus]

The charge is to be paid between the hours of 6:00 am and 6:29 pm. The holiday month of July will be free, as are evenings and weekends.

Wow, a whole month with no tolls?

July in Sweden in urban areas is extremely dead. 

Anyone who can get out of town does so.  It helps that Swedes, by  law, get four weeks off, which may be taken between June and August.

[Chris]

It's an attempt at increasing the support for the congestion charge. Scandinavian cities are not really all that congested compared to London or Paris, it's usually just a few stretches of freeways and some urban arterials that are congested. They held a referendum in the Greater Stockholm area, but they already decided beforehand that the decision to implement it would only be taken on the outcome in Stockholm core municipality. The end result was a narrow vote for the congestion charge in Stockholm and a vote against the charge in every single suburban municipality.

A referendum was promised in Göteborg as well, but was never held, possibly to avoid an embarrassing defeat of the measure. So the congestion charge was implemented without any popular vote.

A few years ago there was a proposal for a congestion charge in Copenhagen, Denmark, but they quickly found out there wasn't really any congestion to charge for, other than some longer queues at traffic signals.

[Duke87]

It helps that Swedes, by  law, get four weeks off, which may be taken between June and August.

Ah. Figured there was something like that going on.

Oh, you crazy Europeans and your heaps of vacation time...

[realjd]

I'm surprised a congestion charge hasn't caught on in places like Manhattan yet. If anywhere in the world could use something like that it would be there.

I'm curious to hear from our English posters as to their view of London's congestion charge. Is the consensus that it helped traffic or that it had no effect other than to generate income?

[cpzilliacus]

It's an attempt at increasing the support for the congestion charge. Scandinavian cities are not really all that congested compared to London or Paris, it's usually just a few stretches of freeways and some urban arterials that are congested.

In part because their populations are so much less than Paris and London.  Though Stockholm's E4/E20 motorway (Essingeleden) suffers from sometimes epic recurring congestion that reminds me of what I have seen around Washington, D.C. and in Los Angeles (though it is not part of the toll cordon, which is just to the east of this road).

They held a referendum in the Greater Stockholm area, but they already decided beforehand that the decision to implement it would only be taken on the outcome in Stockholm core municipality. The end result was a narrow vote for the congestion charge in Stockholm and a vote against the charge in every single suburban municipality.

A referendum was promised in Göteborg as well, but was never held, possibly to avoid an embarrassing defeat of the measure. So the congestion charge was implemented without any popular vote.

Sweden also held a national referendum about switching from driving on the left side of the road to the  right side of the road in the 1950's.  It was defeated.  The Swedish government decided to make the switch in the mid-1960's anyway, and it was implemented in September 1967.

A few years ago there was a proposal for a congestion charge in Copenhagen, Denmark, but they quickly found out there wasn't really any congestion to charge for, other than some longer queues at traffic signals.

Copenhagen, like much of the Netherlands, is extremely flat, and they have a decent amount of bicycle use there (at least in the warmer months).  Until the Great Belt Bridge and the Øresund bridge-tunnel were completed, the only way to get on or off the island of Zealand (on which Copenhagen is located) was by way of car ferries and rail float ferries, though I don't know if that mattered much in terms of daily travel habits.

EDIT: Corrected typo.

[english si]

I'm curious to hear from our English posters as to their view of London's congestion charge. Is the consensus that it helped traffic or that it had no effect other than to generate income?

1)Congestion isn't much better in most of Central London as the vehicles that caused much of it are exempt due to being big and red or black with a yellow sign on top. Ironically the secondary aim of reducing pollution has these biggest polluters exempt - any gain in air quality has happened with other policies relating to the bus and taxi fleet.

2)no one in their right mind would drive through Central London if they could avoid it - unless the was congestion elsewhere that made the journey longer. Congestion, especially in cities where there's lots of alternate routes, is fairly self regulating

3)congestion on the boundary roads has gone up as you can't rat run on one side of it, and it turns out that for many people, going along quiet roads within the zone was what they did to avoid clogging up the main ring road that suddenly became the boundary

4)the scheme makes little profit - they had to up the charge as not enough people go through to cover costs - what they do make is spent on increasing bus provision inside the zone, so congestion doesn't fall anyway. Congestion was made worse when they spend the money (and other money) on replacing double-deckers with bendy-buses that take up more road space per passenger and can't turn the many tight corners of London easily.

5)the scheme is more a carbon tax, as beyond resident discounts, if you drive a no-emissions vehicle, you pay no charge. If congestion was the problem, then there'd still be a token charge for electric vehicles. Then again, if tackling congestion and emissions were the aim, buses and taxis would be exempt

6)the former mayor Ken Livingstone, who came up with the charge, promised friends in Tower Hamlets (possibly the most lefty council area in London, and thus most suited to Ken) not long after the scheme started (like a week*) that they would be next to have congestion charge as they seemingly wanted it - they still don't have it.

7)instead Ken extended the Kengestion Charge zone to posh Kensington and Chelsea, which is about the only place in inner London that would never vote Labour. Make of that what you will.

8)The irony was that it gave the hated 'Chelsea tractor' (urban SUV), which was target number one on Ken's 'ban the lot' approach to car traffic a 90% residents discount for the charge!

9)current Mayor Boris Johnson was elected, having proposed to remove the zone. He did so to choruses of "we spend lots of money setting that up, don't waste money!" on getting rid of it, to which he replied - "blame Ken for the waste of money - he set it up without real consultation or anything". The people of Chelsea, etc rejoiced as it came down and their businesses, which didn't have that central London location, or handy tube stop nearby, could trade again as there wasn't massive congestion (on the boundary roads) or a large fee to get to it.

*the first week of the charge was a school holiday week, so traffic would be down over the week before anyway. That was ignored by promoters of the scheme and remembered by everyone else. I'm pretty sure Ken claimed it was an unmitigated success during that week. Changing all the traffic light times so that they were better optimized a couple of months afterwards helped the promoters of the scheme too - and many think that for the few weeks running up to the charge they had played with them to make them deliberately worse, so as to give a stronger reduction of journey times inside the zone.

[mgk920]

A congestion charge for entering Manhattan?  I thought that one already exists with the toll to cross the Hudson into NYC and how much it costs to park a car there - assuming that one can find a space.



Also try to park a car in the downtown Chicago area.  Yes, spaces are very plentiful - but at rates that will send you right to the CTA and their outlaying park-and-ride stations (unless, of course, you have three or more people with you, in which case it is likely cheaper to drive and park downtown).

Mike

[Duke87]

I'm surprised a congestion charge hasn't caught on in places like Manhattan yet. If anywhere in the world could use something like that it would be there.

The problem is that as a condition of the contracts which turned some of the major free bridges over to the city, it was stipulated that they cannot be tolled. As such, the city is legally unable to implement such a plan without permission from Albany. The idea has been proposed a few times but the political will to add tolls to anything is not there, especially when it would do nothing to benefit anyone upstate.

And even in transit-friendly New York City, there remains enough of a car culture that the idea is ultimately a non-starter. People like their free bridges and don't want them taken away. Bear in mind as well that less than a quarter of New York City's population lives in Manhattan and thus most people don't perceive there to be much benefit - outside of transit advocate and urbanist circles, the idea is mostly seen as just another toll/tax which people complain they're already paying too much of.

[cpzilliacus]

TheLocal.se: Gothenburg traffic drops with new toll fee

The new year's day introduction of a congestion charge has deterred one in five drivers from taking a spin in central Gothenburg.

[kphoger]

Also try to park a car in the downtown Chicago area.  Yes, spaces are very plentiful - but at rates that will send you right to the CTA and their outlaying park-and-ride stations (unless, of course, you have three or more people with you, in which case it is likely cheaper to drive and park downtown).

Mike

I always preferred to find a free place to park near a CTA station.  Then, with three or four people, you're still better off on transit, and you avoid the worst of the traffic.

[cpzilliacus]

TOLLROADSnews: Gothenburg 2nd city in Sweden gets central area cordon toll

Gothenburg, second city of Sweden (metro pop 900k) began a central area cordon toll January 2. The toll is levied for motor vehicles entering and exiting the city center between 6am and 6:30pm workdays, the charges being 8Kr, 13Kr or 18Kr (@15c/Krona this is $1.20, $1.95 and $2.70. There's a maximum of 60Kr, $9.00 in tolls a day. No vehicle classification is made so all sizes of vehicles face these tolls.

There are 36 toll points (betalstation in Swedish,) single mast arms or gantries over the roadways with laser vehicle detectors and cameras. All tolls are levied with cameras using optical character recognition or manual review as a fallback, as in central area cordon toll schemes in Stockholm and London UK.

[Chris]

The editor of tollroadsnews is a bit too eager to toll everything possible for my liking. Tolls can be a useful tool to pay for projects which tax revenue cannot pay for, but this is high-taxed Europe, not the United States.

Most European countries have very high levels of taxation on motoring, they just choose not to spend it on where the revenue is taken. If Virginia thinks its $ 0.178 per gallon gas tax is high, they better not look at Europe where a gas tax of $ 3 - 4 per gallon is the norm. The gas tax in Sweden is $ 3.20 per gallon and that is not including an additional 25% sales tax. Which, on a side note, makes the moaning in Virginia about a proposed sales tax increase from 6 to 6.8% a bit out of place.

[cpzilliacus]

The editor of tollroadsnews is a bit too eager to toll everything possible for my liking. Tolls can be a useful tool to pay for projects which tax revenue cannot pay for, but this is high-taxed Europe, not the United States.

Fair comment.  You could send Peter Samuel (its editor) a note about  that.

Most European countries have very high levels of taxation on motoring, they just choose not to spend it on where the revenue is taken. If Virginia thinks its $ 0.178 per gallon gas tax is high, they better not look at Europe where a gas tax of $ 3 - 4 per gallon is the norm. The gas tax in Sweden is $ 3.20 per gallon and that is not including an additional 25% sales tax. Which, on a side note, makes the moaning in Virginia about a proposed sales tax increase from 6 to 6.8% a bit out of place.

I am well aware of the much higher taxes on motor fuel (and resulting much higher per-liter prices) in most EU nations, especially the UK, Sweden and Finland (I have not driven in the UK (too wimpy to drive on the left side of the road), but I have seen the prices at gas stations there).

Regarding the complaining about "high" motor fuel prices in the U.S., it is indeed misplaced, at least by EU standards. 

Note that in Virginia, one plan being considered would eliminate entirely the tax on gasoline  (but not Diesel fuel) and replace it with a higher sales tax.

[Chris]

It's noteworthy to mention that the high taxation in Europe does not stop with a high gas tax.

To get an idea about car taxes in Europe, here's the Dutch situation;

1) if you purchase a car, you do not just pay a 21% sales tax, you also pay a vehicle purchase tax. It varies by emission standards, but is approximately 42 - 45% of the pre-tax price. The total tax on a new car is thus over 65%.

2) everyone owning a car must pay an annual road tax. For regular passenger cars, this ranges from about $ 700 per year for a gasoline-powered car to $ 1500 per year for a diesel or LPG-powered car.

3) road tolls are generally high. There are no toll freeways in the Netherlands (yet), but in France or Spain they charge about $ 0.25 per mile.

4) trucks pay hefty tolls in most of Europe. This ranges from $ 0.50 per mile in Germany to $ 1.50 per mile in Switzerland.

5) in addition, some bridges and tunnels have extreme tolls. The Mont Blanc Tunnel between France and Italy charges $ 55 per passenger car or $ 400 per semi truck one-way.

6) parking fees are generally high as well. My small city (pop. 120,000) charges $ 4 per hour in the city center.

Interestingly, the modal split in Europe is not that different from the United States, with car usage only being a few percent lower. We are just used to allocate a larger share of the household budget to mobility.

[cpzilliacus]

TheLocal.se: Gothenburg residents demand say on road tolls

Gothenburg residents were out on force on Saturday to demonstrate in favour of a referendum on the controversial road congestion charge which was introduced on January 1st.

Around a thousand people gathered on Götaplatsen in central Gothenburg to demand a say on the charge which has been credited with cutting traffic by 23 percent.

[Avalanchez71]

It's noteworthy to mention that the high taxation in Europe does not stop with a high gas tax.

To get an idea about car taxes in Europe, here's the Dutch situation;

1) if you purchase a car, you do not just pay a 21% sales tax, you also pay a vehicle purchase tax. It varies by emission standards, but is approximately 42 - 45% of the pre-tax price. The total tax on a new car is thus over 65%.

2) everyone owning a car must pay an annual road tax. For regular passenger cars, this ranges from about $ 700 per year for a gasoline-powered car to $ 1500 per year for a diesel or LPG-powered car.

3) road tolls are generally high. There are no toll freeways in the Netherlands (yet), but in France or Spain they charge about $ 0.25 per mile.

4) trucks pay hefty tolls in most of Europe. This ranges from $ 0.50 per mile in Germany to $ 1.50 per mile in Switzerland.

5) in addition, some bridges and tunnels have extreme tolls. The Mont Blanc Tunnel between France and Italy charges $ 55 per passenger car or $ 400 per semi truck one-way.

6) parking fees are generally high as well. My small city (pop. 120,000) charges $ 4 per hour in the city center.

Interestingly, the modal split in Europe is not that different from the United States, with car usage only being a few percent lower. We are just used to allocate a larger share of the household budget to mobility.

That is insane. There are no toll roads in the entire state of Tennessee.  We pay about $50-$75 a year depending on the county for registration renewal.  The sales tax on vehicle is 7.00% with a maximum local tax of $36.00.