Problem definition: Congestion pricing offers an appealing solution to urban parking problems--charging varying rates across time and space as a function of congestion may shift demand and improve allocation of limited resources. It aims to increase the accessibility of highly desired public goods and to reduce traffic caused by drivers who search for available parking spaces. At the same time, complex policies make it harder for consumers to make search-based decisions. We investigate the effect of congestion pricing on consumer and social welfare. Academic/practical relevance: This paper contributes to the theory and practice of the management of scarce resources in the public sector, where welfare is of particular interest. Methodologically, we contribute to the literature on structural estimation of dynamic spatial search models. Methodology: Using data from the City of San Francisco, both before and after the implementation of a congestion pricing parking program, SFpark, we estimate the welfare implications of the policy. We use a dynamic spatial search model to structurally estimate consumers' search costs, distance disutilities, price sensitivities, and trip valuations. Result: We find that congestion pricing increases consumer and social welfare by more than 4% and reduces search traffic by more than 10% in congested regions compared to fixed pricing. But congestion pricing may hurt welfare in uncongested regions, in which the focus should be on increasing utilization. Moreover, an unnecessarily complex congestion-pricing scheme makes it difficult for consumers to make search-based decisions. We find that a simpler pricing policy may yield higher welfare than a complex one. Lastly, compared to a policy that imposes limits on parking durations, congestion pricing increases social welfare by allocating the scarce resource to consumers who value it most. Managerial implications: The insights from SFpark offer important implications for local governments who consider alternatives for managing parking and congestion, and for public sector managers who evaluate the tradeoffs between approaches to manage public resources.

"The presence of preexisting tax distortions, and the form of revenue recycling, can crucially affect the size -- and possibly even the sign -- of the welfare effect of road pricing schemes. The efficiency gains from recycling congestion tax revenues in other tax reductions can amount to several times the Pigouvian welfare gains from congestion reduction"--Cover.

This paper develops an analytical framework for airport congestion pricing by considering variable passenger time costs. We find that, first, congestion delays will not be fully internalized at the carrier level under different market structures, including those airports dominated by a monopoly airline. Therefore, congestion pricing is necessary regardless of the market structures. Second, although congestion pricing is welfare-improving, it may not be Pareto-improving. This might explain why congestion pricing is unpopular in the real world.

Traffic congestion affects towns and cities everywhere and in some places it is regarded as one of the most urgent and important problems in need of a solution. Road pricing is undoubtedly recognised as an effective traffic demand management tool. The recent London congestion charging scheme seems to be showing that public and political opposition is not insurmountable. Thus, the ghost that prevented the introduction of a policy supported by transport economists for over 80 years seems to have disappeared or at least, weakened.The book contains twelve papers useful to different types of audience, such as researchers and postgraduate students, civil servants, policy makers and consultants. The first part is mainly theoretical and concentrates on second-best congestion pricing including pricing in urban contexts, the impact on the performance of the road network, optimal locations and charge levels, dynamic aspects such as time variation of tolls, potential impacts of road pricing on costs and service quality of public transport buses, and efficiency costs and transport sector effects of different types of pricing when they guarantee a balanced budget per mode.The second part contains chapters that describe the schemes in place around the world such as Singapore, Norway, London, and the US. The volume is an update of the state of the art on the subject and the first one to have been written and appear after the London scheme was implemented and to contain an assessment of its preliminary impacts.