There is such an iron law of economics that the unlimited expansion of demand exceeds the supply of free goods, resulting in the congestion of the market economy. There is no better explanation than this iron law. Because people can use urban roads for free, traffic jams have appeared in almost every big city and many small cities. During most of the day, the traffic is slow, not only in new york, Los Angeles, Chicago and many other American cities, but also in Mexico City, Sao Paulo, Paris, Rome, London, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and Mumbai. With the passage of time and traffic, congestion has greatly increased, not only in the morning and evening rush hours, but also in the opposite direction. In other words, the traffic volume is large and the progress is slow. It goes out to suburban cities in the morning and returns to the urban areas at night. The direct cause of population growth and road congestion in China, India, Brazil, Mexico and other developing countries is the sharp increase in the number of cars. The number of cars in rich countries has also increased, partly because of the increased labor activities of married women who drive to work. Although the traffic on the road is more crowded, most men and women still choose to drive because it gives them greater flexibility in the times and regards tourism as leisure or work. In addition, with the emergence of power steering, four-wheel drive, improved tires, air conditioning, mobile phones and advanced audio equipment, cars have become more comfortable, reliable and safe. Additional road construction is against many countries slowing down road construction for environmental reasons to adapt to more and more cars. Texas Transportation Research Institute estimates that in 1994, driving cost more than 7.5 billion dollars in extra time and fuel due to traffic jams. They assume that the average time value of each person is 1 1 USD per hour, and each car is about one and a quarter hours. Since then, the increase of time value indicates that the comparable figure in 2005 may exceed $654.38+050 billion, or exceed 1% of US GDP. In addition, these estimates have not taken into account the pollution damage caused by traffic congestion caused by excessive driving. Just like the weather, everyone is talking about traffic -Mask lists more than 1 10000 websites to discuss traffic congestion, but almost everything is used to reduce this congestion except some new roads and public transportation systems. When people live high in the city and build suburbs, congestion is inevitable. But there is a fundamental reason, the traffic congestion is greater than the effective amount. When a person decides to drive to work during the rush hour, he thinks that any extra time will be spent on the roads of that era because of traffic jams. But he generally doesn't affect his driving because of the congestion faced by others. Economists say that this is an increase in congestion, resulting in the negative externalities of others. Of course, the decision to promote in the crowded period, everyone's harm to others is very small, because he only added a small amount of traffic time. However, thousands of cars have been added to a large total location, and all these small locations have greatly increased traffic congestion. No one will decide whether to drive or not, or whether to avoid the rush hour traffic. The best way to induce drivers to take an account to cause traffic congestion to others is to charge. Driving in crowded hours will vary with the degree of congestion. Therefore, these expenses will be higher at peak hours than at other times of the day, and the traffic will be lighter at weekends than usual. The cost should be higher. Congestion is part of bad weather, because it rains or snows, because driving will slow down because of the weather, and partly because more and more people decide to drive by themselves instead of walking or taking public transportation. When it rains. No city has such a complicated form of congestion pricing. But interestingly, it joined Kenneth Livingstone (sometimes called "Hongken"), the left-wing mayor of London, and became the first big city to really introduce a large-scale congestion road tax, although this method in Singapore started the permit system in 1975. In 2003, Livingstone implemented a central office hour pricing system for cars entering London. At first, their cars would cross the cordon around central London every time they received the owner's car. This fee was proposed in 2005? Eight pounds. The camera recorded the license plates of the cars, because they crossed the road, and anyone who tried to avoid paying the accumulated toll fine would be caught. This simple system is much better than some analysts expected, although economists know from many other examples that people try their best to replace any commodity or activity and become more expensive. The basic law of this demand applies to driving and rush hour. The car flow in central London has decreased by about 20%, and the average speed of the center has increased by about 8, reaching 1 1 km/h, while the delay of cars and buses has been reduced even more during peak hours. By adjusting the use of public transport, carpooling, cycling, or walking to central London instead of drivers. More and more people finally switch to buses instead of trains, because bus travel becomes faster. Due to the reduction of congestion, the number of cars competing with buses in the streets of central cities has dropped a lot. In the long run, such charges will induce some companies and shops to locate their offices and shops outside central London. London's system is quite effective, but it is still a crude oil pricing system. The amount of charges for entering the central city on weekdays remains unchanged, even if it is congested, sometimes because of weather changes. The deputy mayor of London told me that they are considering introducing a more complex system. Anyone who enters a central city needs a device, his car tracking system, which transmits the position information of the car to the electronic toll collector at different times. Now the congestion of his car in the central city depends on the owner. At the end of each month, the owner will evaluate the prepaid expenses of the previous month's traffic congestion. A more complex pricing system will have all the advantages of this system, plus some extra traffic will move slowly, because it will raise taxes, and when it decreases, the traffic will flow faster. And other congestion-based charges, in addition, some enterprises will be encouraged to stagger their commuting hours and avoid the peak hours, so the cost will be higher. This will encourage shopping on weekdays to wait until the rush hour to enter the central city, and the traffic before leaving will become crowded at the end of the day. Controlling vehicle driving can relieve traffic pressure more effectively than other ways. Some cities allow cars to enter the central part of the only substitute day. This method does not have the advantage of daily entry, and is put in different value-oriented accounts by different drivers. In this way, the gasoline tax reduces driving and helps to reduce traffic jams, but it pays less attention to traffic jams during rush hours than when driving, when light affects traffic garages. A few weeks ago, michael bloomberg, the mayor of new york, refused to get on the bus and imposed a cordon tax in downtown areas near new york. Obviously, urban management has not paid attention to the more complicated form of congestion tax. New york's decision is unusual, because many other cities have considered and then refused to collect fees to ease the terrible congestion during office hours and speed up traffic. To some extent, competitors from enterprises and shops in urban areas may have fewer customers and have to pay more for their employees. Opponents from car owners and some conservatives only see another tax that increases government revenue. I certainly don't want to increase the already heavy tax burden in cities and other places. Ideally, I think other taxes can be reduced to offset any increase in congestion fees, and the income is fair. However, traffic congestion is a tax, but a person, not his wallet, hides this tax because it increases the time wasted in traffic congestion. At present, this kind of tax for congestion control is a very inefficient tax, because it is not paid to anyone, and it is actually a waste of time and people's most precious resources. Unless the government loses a lot of revenue from congestion charges, these charges are more efficient than the taxes that cause traffic congestion now.