Trondheim toll scheme
Trondheim Toll Scheme or Trondheim Package (Norwegian: Trondheimspakken) was the result of that in the 1980s politicans and road authorities in Trondheim, Norway wanted to excelerate the investments in roads and motorways around the city through an investment package and toll scheme to ease construction and generate more funds. Between 1991 and 2005 there were more than 20 toll plazas throughout the city that help finance the new roads. Toll plazas will still remain east of the city at least until 2012.
Project size
The system financed by the scheme includes a ring road around the city on European route E6, a new motorway east of the city to Stjørdal and Trondheim Airport, Værnes on E6, upgrades to E6 south of the city, including a new intersection at Sandmoen, a new Kroppan Bridge and a four-lane motorway between Klepp and Melhus. As of 2007 a road from Ila via Brattøra to Lademoen, named Nordre Avlastningsvei, is under construction with plans to be finished in 2009 while an extension of E6 between the airport and to Kvithamar north of Stjørdal is in the start fase. Projects still not started include puting Osloveien in Byåsen in a tunnel, a new Sluppen Bridge and a four-lane motorway between Tronstad at Heimdal to Klepp. There was also a political consensus that some of the money generated by the system should be used to improve public transport in the city. Some environmental projects in the area also benefit from the toll income.
More than twenty toll booths were built, closing off all approaches to the city. It was impossible for anybody driving a car to get in for free. The charge was NOK 15 for cars and 30 for trucks. The systems has been designed to be user friendly through AutoPASS technology developed by the local company Q-Free, involving a radio-transmittet registration of passing cars, allowing cars to pass the toll booths at 60 km/h. All a driver has to do is fit a little plastic device to the windscreen of the car. This communicates with the toll booth when the car passes through, deducting money from the user's account.
The system was initially introduced to fund the building of new ring roads so that the heaviest traffic would not have to pass through the city centre. But part of the reason for this traffic is that Trondheim Port is located on an artifical island only accessible via the city centre and Trondheim has yet to do like most cities and move its port out of the city centre, like the London Docklands and Fjordbyen in Oslo.
Cristism
The initial reaction to the toll system in Trondheim was mixed. Some daily commuters felt the extra cost was unjustifiable, but most drivers were quite happy to pay in order to get some of the heaviest traffic out of the city centre. Ten years on, most drivers in and around Trondheim do not give the toll system a second thought. They have become used to it over time, and the system was also cleverly designed to be extremely user-friendly.
The initial development of the project came at the same time as the city coucil decided to close the Trondheim Tramway in 1988, with arguments that diesel busses are cheaper to operate. Trondheim has a notoriously low public transport ridership, at 11% of the total transport trips using public transport, compared to almost 50% in Oslo. Part of this is credited the low frequency and high time costs of using public transport in Trondheim.