Changing user perceptions of road costs to reduce private car use and road traffic externalities

This paper proposes a car pricing policy based on fuel surtaxes in substitution of third party insurance and car ownership tax; the aim of the proposed policy is to change some non-perceived fixed costs of car use at each trip into perceived costs. Operating in this way, it is possible to increase the perceived costs of car use without increasing the real total costs. The effects of the proposed policy on reduction of car use and of external costs are estimated