Skip to main content

Sweden's Gothenburg introduces congestion charging

Sweden's second city Gothenburg will is to introduce a road toll for all motorists entering or leaving the city, similar to one already in place in the capital Stockholm. The system, aimed at financing infrastructure investments, reducing greenhouse gases and cutting traffic in Gothenburg's city centre by around 15 percent, will include some forty toll stations around the city. According to Eva Rosman of the Swedish Transport Agency, the system introduced in Stockholm in 2007 has led to a 15-18 percent redu
January 2, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
Sweden's second city Gothenburg will is to introduce a road toll for all motorists entering or leaving the city, similar to one already in place in the capital Stockholm.

The system, aimed at financing infrastructure investments, reducing greenhouse gases and cutting traffic in Gothenburg's city centre by around 15 percent, will include some forty toll stations around the city. According to Eva Rosman of the 2124 Swedish Transport Agency, the system introduced in Stockholm in 2007 has led to a 15-18 percent reduction of traffic in the city centre.

Gothenburg, located on Sweden's west coast, has some 520,000 inhabitants. Motorists entering and leaving the city Monday to Friday will pay between US$1.2 to US$2.75, depending on the time of day. The holiday month of July will be free, as are evenings and weekends.  Emergency vehicles and cars with foreign licence plates and will be exempt.

Overhead cameras will register the licence plates of cars entering or leaving city limits. Motorists can either have the amount automatically deducted from their bank account or pay a bill in some shops or by internet. Motorists who don't pay will be fined.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Figures show Express Lanes bring wider benefits
    August 12, 2015
    Drivers in the Washington DC area are realising time savings following the opening of Express Lanes on the I-95 - and not only those paying to use the new facility. Washington is ranked as being the worst gridlocked city in the United States. Every day its drivers face an average commute time of 39.5 minutes and they waste an average of 67 hours every year just sitting in traffic. In a move to counter these problems, late last December new Express Lanes were opened along 46.6km (29 miles) of the I-95 betwee
  • Smoothing the path to reducing traffic pollution
    October 22, 2014
    David Crawford reviews a new approach to traffic smoothing. A key objective for the Californian city of Bakersfield’s upgraded traffic operations centre (TOC), which opened in June 2014, is to help improve living conditions in a region with one of the worst air quality problems in the US. The TOC is speeding up the smoothing of traffic flows by delivering faster and better-informed traffic signal retiming and synchronisation.
  • Florida's high occupancy tolling success in reducing congestion
    July 18, 2012
    TransCore's David Sparks writes about the development of 95 Express, Florida Department of Transportation's new high-occupancy tolling facility. High-Occupancy Tolling (HOT) lanes are one of the most compelling uses of existing transportation infrastructure to expand capacity, particularly in major metropolitan areas which have limited right of way but need to relieve congestion. According to the Federal Highway Administration, while vehicle miles travelled have increased over 70 per cent in the past 20 yea
  • Tolling is still stuck on the sidelines says ASECAP speaker
    August 19, 2015
    Geoff Hadwick attended ASECAP’s 2015 Study Days meeting in Lisbon and found a frustrated European tolling sector undertaking some soul searching. The international road tolling industry its failing to make it case and the sector is losing out to a range of other socio-political lobby groups according to International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) chief executive Pat Jones. Speaking at the recent 2015 ASECAP Study Days conference in Lisbon, Jones issued a stark warning: “Tolling is still o