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9.5.11 Conclusions on Area Pricing— Jbe main problem with area pricing is that itrepresents a major change in traffic control policy with considerable uncertainty asto the outcome. In particular, electronic road pricing (ERP) has been rejected beforefor reasons described above. Nevertheless, the CTS-2 analyses confirm area pricingas technically the most effective means of controlling traffic growth in specific areas.Fuel Tax9.5.12 Duties are already levied on fuel; increasing these duties would be anadministratively simple traffic control measure acting directly on the use of vehicles.9.5.13 The disadvantage of fuel tax is that it acts across the board, hitting off-peakmotoring in uncongested areas as well as motoring on the busiest roads. Users ofcongested roads would pay more per kilometre, since fuel consumption goes up asspeeds decline, but off-peak motorists would still pay a large proportion of the taxpaid by peak-hour motorists. However, as a supplement to the already high vehicleownership taxes, fuel tax could have a role.Tunnel Tolls9.5.14 Tolls are charged on three out of the four existing road tunnels in Hong Kong, theonly exception being the airport tunnel where space does not permit construction ofa toil plaza. Tolls are planned for all major new road tunnels being planned or nowunder construction.9.5^1 5 Tolls affect the traffic volumes using the tunnels and therefore can be used to controlw traffic demand. This was demonstrated by the imposition of a passage tax on theCross- Harbour tunnel in 1 984 which had the effect of reducing car and taxi traffic byabout 1 5% and light goods vehicles traffic by about 1 3%; medium and heavy goodswere almost unaffected. Traffic growth since then has replaced those trafficreductions but three years of improved operations were gained. It is recommendedthat tolls continue to be used as a means .of -managing...... traffic ......9.5,1 6 It would be possible to extend the toll principle to control traffic levels on other roads,in particular the main trunk roads of the Territory. There are some disadvantages:(1 ) Toll plazas are required to collect the tolls. The toll system can take two forms:open or closed. The open system establishes toll plazas at intervals along thelength of the road, with the disadvantage that traffic can by-pass the tolledsections by returning to the street system. Closed systems, on the other hand,require toll barriers at all entrances and exits to the toll road to ensure that allusers pay for the full length of the journey on the road; they have thedisadvantage of greater expense to build and operate.(2) Traffic is deterred from using the toll roads, thus reducing the congestion reliefgiven to the existing street system. To control the street congestion, other trafficmanagement policies are required.Parking Controls9.5.1 7 The areas of highest traffic congestion tend to be the major business and shoppingdistricts. Therefore, controls on parking can be used to limit the number of tripswhich can be made to these districts by private car. Parking controls are widely usedinternationally as a traffic demand management measure.9.5.18 A weakness of parking controls as a traffic management measure is that throughtraffic, which does not need to park in the targeted district is also unaffected. Thishas been summarised as the inherent problem of parking policy of attempting tocontrol moving vehicles by charging stationary ones. Also, local authorities aresometimes forced to relax their parking policy to attract important developers to theirarea. However, with the system of major through routes being developed and withcontrol of parking standards throughout the Territory in the hands of a singleGovernment both these factors present less problems in Hong Kong than elsewhere.175