A Tradable Credits Scheme for VMT Reduction and Environmental Effects: A Simulation Case Study for Great Britain

The authors investigate the influence of a tradable credits scheme (TCS) on travel demand and vehicle emissions, based on the vehicle miles travelled (VMT). With a microeconomic quantitative analysis scheme, a constant elasticity of substitution (CES) function is used as an approach to model the annual mileage by different travel purposes. An illustration is given for the effects of a TCS on emission mitigation based on historical data for Great Britain. A scenario analysis demonstrates that a tradable credits scheme can achieve a target for reducing the number of private trips. Besides a movement of trips from the private car mode to public modes, there is also some trip restraint, with individuals choosing not to take some trips. Compared with past research on road pricing in London (Fowkes et al. (1995)), the research illustrates that a TCS can be designed to have similar effects to a road pricing scheme. The authors also demonstrate that a TCS could bring emission changes arising from the changes with respect to VMT.

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