User reaction and efficient differentiation of charges and tolls

In the European Union, levels and structures of transport infrastructure charges vary strongly across transport modes and countries. Some degree of convergence exists, but in the presence of unsolved practical and theoretical difficulties, any such convergence is slow. Moreover, the charging regimes that can be observed are often far from internalising external costs and are rarely based on efficiency principles. In this situation, differentiation of existing charges appears to be a sensible first step.DIFFERENT proposes to investigate the possibilities of success for such an approach from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The theoretical analysis will reveal how much differentiation successful pricing schemes should exhibit, given that there are economic costs of price differentiation and problems of political implementation.