You can get drivers to change their habits way faster if you charge them for 'safety' instead of 'traffic.'
March 19, 2026
Original Paper
Investigation on the Use of Urban Road Pricing as a Road Safety Intervention: A Discrete Choice Experiment
SSRN · 6347938
The Takeaway
Urban road pricing is almost always sold as a way to manage traffic jams, which drivers often view as a nuisance tax. This experiment found that when the exact same tolls were framed as a 'road safety intervention' to reduce crashes, the behavioral shift was significantly larger, proving that public willingness to pay or change habits is tied more to moral outcomes than efficiency ones.
From the abstract
<p><span>Background.</span></p> <p><span>Urban road pricing has traditionally been justified as a congestion-management instrument. However, road crashes represent a major external cost of transport systems, and safety has rarely been explicitly integrated into pricing design or appraisal. This study examines whether road pricing framed as a road safety intervention generates behavioural shifts that are equal to or greater than those produced by conventional congestion-oriented pricing.</span></