Case Study: Road Building or Road Pricing

Facing the traffic congestion from Wan Chai to the Central District, the government of Hong Kong had to find a way to resolve this problem. There were two options available for discussion: One is to build a Central-Wan Chai bypass on the northern part of the island to increase the capacity of existing road network and the other is the implementation of Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) to suppress traffic demand. After assessing both options, I recommend building the Central-Wan Chai bypass while considering the ERP as a complement rather than an alternative.

Before jumping to the recommendations, we should take a look at Hong Kong’s transportation system and understand how the traffic congestion would impact both the commuters and the society.

Due to the scarcity of land and the economic growth, Hong Kong faced increasing road traffic along the corridor connecting Wan Chai and the Central District. As a result, many Hong Kong commuters suffered, and they had to sacrifice the precious time with their families. Therefore, they would favor the proposal of bypass if it would substantially save their travel time, and thus they could spend more time on work or with their families. Also, they might be willing to pay a reasonable price to reduce commuting time if the ERP could suppress the traffic. Moreover, if the government didn’t take actions, the congestion along the corridor would spill over into neighboring roads in Wan Chai and Central, and a traffic incident on the corridor could paralyze the Island. The traffic congestion would also restrain the capacity of goods transportation by road.

In order to ease the traffic congestion, two ideas were proposed for consideration: A Central-Wan Chai bypass and the road pricing.

The government of Hong Kong proposed to build the new bypass that required land reclamation in Victoria Harbour to reduce the duration of the trip from Causeway Bay to Central, resulting in a substantial saving in travel time. The commuters would...