This paper is based upon detailed research that has taken place in the UK and Italy, on the
implementation strategies for urban road pricing schemes. In the UK, both in London and Durham, the
Road User Charging schemes required new legislation, and were implemented rapidly. The time from
announcement to implementation took three years and the schemes were introduced after short periods of
intensive planning, consultations and stakeholder networking. In Italy, the situation has been very
different. The road pricing schemes in Rome and Genoa were not introduced under specific legislation
but rather evolved from access control zones originally implemented in historic urban centres. The
incremental introduction of the Italian road pricing experiments has taken approximately ten years.
The paper undertakes a comparison of these different strategies to introduce urban road pricing and the
lessons they contain for the development of similar measures elsewhere. The comparison of the different
implementing experiences is undertaken using Strategic Policy Niche Management, a method designed to
explore, among other factors, the dynamics of the stakeholder networks involved in planning, introducing,
marketing and managing radical urban Travel Demand Management policies.
