VCEC on congestion

The submission I co-wrote with Andrew Hawkins on ‘Economic Approaches to Traffic Congestion Control in Greater Melbourne’ seems to have had an impact (at least in terms of repeated citations) on the Victorian Competition & Efficiency Commission (VCEC) draft report making the right choices that addresses Melbourne’s congestion issues. These documents, as well as the consultant’s report defining transport congestion are on the VCEC website.

I am surprised with the positive response to our submission since our advocacy of congestion pricing was inconsistent with the prior views of the Treasurer, John Brumby and the Premier, Steve Bracks. Even our proposal for a cordon pricing scheme gets a mention in the draft though it is certainly not proposed. Suggestions we made to renegotiate contracts with CityLink and EastLink to force peak load pricing rather than uniform tolls – widely criticised by nervous nellies in academe and in the blogosphere – have been taken up in the draft report.

The draft report is a useful resource for those interested in congestion planning. I am thinking about a response to it so, if you have any comments on it, please help me out and post them here.