Achieving political acceptability for new transport infrastructure in congested urban regions

The paper analyzes the political acceptability of policies targeted at relieving urban congestion. The paper combines a stylized model of an urban transport network with a somewhat more detailed model of the political process that incorporates interactions between voters, special interest groups and politicians to explore the possibilities to reach political acceptability for efficient transport policies. In a case study of a proposed bypass in Lyon, France, the paper compares a set of potential policies in terms of efficiency, equity and political acceptability. A possible explanation for the difficulty of achieving political support for efficient transport policies is that since urban road pricing policies are characterized by conflicting interest, the political decision making process must balance different interests against each other to reach an efficient outcome. The analysis suggest that the difficulty to achieve political support for efficient road pricing policies is not a lack of political acceptability; instead the difficulty arises because of low political feasibility for efficient transport pricing since non-efficient transport policies are seen as more attractive to the decision makers.