Government advice

Shape metropolitan areas

Many national governments express an increased interest in policies that can help shape metropolitan areas, increasing the willingness of inhabitants and visitors to travel by public transport, walking and cycling. Common rationales for such policies are lower congestion levels, better air quality, reduced fossil energy use as well as improved business competitiveness through improved travel time predictability. Also the Swedish Government continues to push for innovation in this area, even after successful implementation of congestion charging in the Stockholm area. As a part of this push for innovation TUB was commissioned to gather and analyse evidence on parking levies from around the world.

The final report covered scheme designs of the Sydney Parking Space Levy and the Nottingham Workplace Parking Levy as well as an analysis of how such a levy could be introduced in Sweden. An underlying principle of the developed proposal was to increase freedom of local authorities and their abilities to meet demands of national climate change commitments in ways that local people find appropriate.