The impact of a congestion pricing exemption on the demand for new energy efficient vehicles in Stockholm

Jake Whitehead, Joel P. Franklin and Simon Washington

Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 2014, vol. 70, issue C, 24-40

Abstract: As governments seek to transition to more efficient vehicle fleets, one strategy has been to incentivize ‘green’ vehicle choice by exempting some of these vehicles from road user charges. As an example, to stimulate sales of energy efficient vehicles (EEVs) in Sweden, some of these automobiles were exempted from Stockholm’s congestion tax. In this paper the effect this policy had on the demand for new, privately-owned, exempt EEVs is assessed by first estimating a model of vehicle choice and then by applying this model to simulate vehicle alternative market shares under different policy scenarios. The database used to calibrate the model includes owner-specific demographics merged with vehicle registry data for all new private vehicles registered in Stockholm County during 2008. Characteristics of individuals with a higher propensity to purchase an exempt EEV were identified. The most significant factors included intra-cordon residency (positive), distance from home to the CBD (negative), and commuting across the cordon (positive). By calculating vehicle shares from the vehicle choice model and then comparing these estimates to a simulated scenario where the congestion tax exemption was inactive, the exemption was estimated to have substantially increased the share of newly purchased, private, exempt EEVs in Stockholm by 1.8% (±0.3%; 95% C.I.) to a total share of 18.8%. This amounts to an estimated 10.7% increase in private, exempt EEV purchases during 2008, i.e., 519 privately owned, exempt EEVs.

Keywords: Energy efficient vehicles; Congestion pricing; Incentive policies; Revealed preferences; Multinomial logit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.tra.2014.09.013

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