The Economic Efficiency Case For Road User Charging Analysis

In this fast changing world, almost everything around us comes with a cost. Even water is sold in bottles, rice is sold at a high price and in some countries clean air is sold in bags. Resources are scarce considering the continuous increase in population and the rise in number of persons needing such resources. Among those are land resources such as roads or highways, commercial/agricultural or residential spaces and other land uses. A basic example of a need for proper allocation and usage of such needs would be what has been discussed in the article we just read.
“The Economic Efficiency Case for Road User Charging” by Chris Nash, Peter Mackie, Jeremy Shires and John Nellthorp talks about both the Long Run and Short Run Marginal Social …show more content…
Other location such as London and Singapore, as enumerated in this article have taken measures to account for marginal costs and have been successful both in reducing traffic, road congestion and even increasing government revenue. Additional imposition of costs would bring about a smarter ways of travelling by the motorist and commuters. Instead of hurriedly going to where they are supposed to go without considering the cost of travel, an increase in amount to be paid, motorists would be think about the benefits of travelling or the gains received in that particular trip as compared to the costs to be shed in just one travel. If more motorists find the cost exceeding the benefit, then there would be lesser persons on the road for they will surely opt to …show more content…
Road construction and road repair which promise to solve the traffic issues, take too long to finish and can sometimes cause more accidents and result to more costs incurred by the government and even motorists themselves than those incremental charges which could have been imposed had this concept been applied. Nevertheless, application of this idea is easier said than done since Filipinos are very cost conscious. Most likely, once additional costs are charged, much objection would be heard from both private and public sectors of the community. But personally, this should be considered to prevent even more complicated problems in the future. Further, this would increase the government’s revenue. Such income can be used in the construction of more highways and roads for the benefit of the motorists. But then again, more factors still have to be considered before imposing additional costs to motorists so further study still needs to be done in order to implement such and for it to be applicable here in our