Socially Optimal Transport Prices and Markets - Principles, Strategies and Impacts

To the degree that prestige, inadequate alternatives or mis-pricing stimulate vehicle travel and sprawl, the resulting transport and land use patterns are suboptimal, and society could benefit overall from policy and planning reforms. [...] It asks, “What amount and mix of travel would people choose if transport and land use policies reflected optimal pricing and planning principles.” This analysis defines efficient market principles, identifies transport market distortions and potential reforms, estimates the changes in mobility these reforms would cause, and discusses implications of this analysis to transport policy and planning. [...] This perspective assumes that the goal is to maximize travel speeds, even if this creates barriers to non-motorized modes (for example, due to wider roads and higher vehicle traffic volumes and speeds) and disperses destinations (for example, due to generous minimum parking requirements which discourage infill development and increase land requirements), and tends to overlook qualitative improveme. [...] A survey of Houston, Texas residents (Blueprint Houston 2003) asked, “Would you personally prefer to live in a suburban setting with larger lots and houses and a longer drive to work and most other places, or in a more central urban setting with smaller homes on smaller lots, and be able to take transit or walk to work and other places?” Fifty-five percent of respondents chose the "Central urban s. [...] More multi-modal planning can help integrate transport services, fares and ticketing, user information, infrastructure provision and management, transport and land use planning, and other public policies such as road, parking and fuel pricing (Preston 2012).