Concessions versus network-wide tolling schemes, the community framework for motorway tolling in europe

This chapter elaborates on two basic options to manage and finance urban roads, in particular the motorways in Europe. These options are: (1) establish concession companies, which build, operate and finance new part of the motorway system or (2) the network is operated and administered as a whole, presumably by a state-owned enterprise. Financing in the latter case may be realized partly by levying tools, partly by other fiscal instruments if not all vehicle categories are priced and the revenues from tolling are not sufficient to recover the full costs. This paper will present the concession regimes in some countries, mainly in southern Europe. The main ideas of promoting concession regimes are professional management and stable finance. But there are also some warnings that need to be discussed, such as the risk of heterogeneous solutions for different network parts that might be detrimental for spatial competition. In concession regimes, all vehicle categories are included in the pricing scheme and have to contribute to finance the total costs and a return on investment for the concessionaire. Austria, Germany and Switzerland are favoring network-wide solutions where not all vehicle categories are included in the tolling scheme or the tolling schemes might be different for the the vehicle categories. For example, heavy goods vehicles may be priced on the basis of kilometers driven while cars may be priced by fuel taxes.