Road pricing: a solution to Ghana's traffic congestion

Abstract

Congestion in major cities around the world calls for the proper management of space vehicles occupy on road networks. The paper develops models that combine the density of car usage in an area, space occupies by vehicles and the damage they cause to roads in the payment of vehicle registration, renewal, and towing rates. The paper confirms that larger vehicles cause greater congestion on roads by virtue of the space they occupy and causes greater damage to the road, as compared to small-sized vehicles. Vehicles should pay road rates commensurate with the density of vehicles, the space they occupy and the damage they cause to the road. From our models, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota, Camry are undercharged across all the offices in the country, except for Tema and Bolga, which charges 120 and 80 Ghana cedis respectively above the 60 Ghana cedis national charge. For new car registration fees, we found that the current charge is higher for New Audi A1 Sportback 2019 except at the
Tema registration office, which charges more than 20 Ghana cedi above the national charge of 100 Ghana cedis. The paper also provides models for costing the removal of vehicles that park at unauthorized places as well as broken-down vehicles on highways. The paper suggests that this method of road user rates payment, aside being a good source of revenue for governments would encourage people to patronize public transport. This will ease road congestion, road rage as well as other unwanted road behaviors, particularly around and within city centres.