Editor’s Note: Meeting the Challenge is an open-ended series from EnergytechStocks.com intended to build a blueprint for how the world can meet the incredible increase in all forms of energy that will be needed by 2030 without endangering the environment or nations’ security. In this series, recognized experts share their ideas and important new investment themes (including some that could turn out to be worth billions of dollars) emerge.

Posted: October 3, 2007

You’ve probably heard about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to make motorists pay extra for using city streets during periods of peak demand. San Francisco, Seattle and other U.S. cities are considering what’s called “congestion pricing.” Around the world, London, Seoul and Singapore are among the cities that have already embraced the idea.

Todd Litman of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in Canada says Mayor Bloomberg should think even bigger. Not just individual cities but entire regions that are routinely congested with traffic should be incorporated into large congestion pricing zones.

Litman explained that doing so would not entail turning more highways into toll roads. Rather, vehicles would be tracked using satellite technology, with motorists paying more the closer they got to the middle of a congested zone such as, for example, midtown Manhattan. Litman said this sort of tracking technology already exists, as do safeguards for protecting motorists’ privacy.

Litman noted that as much as the New York metropolitan area might benefit from a tri-state congestion pricing plan that included northern New Jersey and southeastern Connecticut, other cities might benefit even more. That’s because New York City already has a quasi system in place (i.e., bridges and tunnels that require tolls), whereas in and around a city like Boston, drivers can just keep moving closer and closer to the center of congestion without having to pay anything.

Region-wide congestion parking is another important aspect of Litman’s overall plan for saving oil and lives and cutting down on air pollution, all by making the current road transport system more efficient. In the first and second parts of this series, Litman described his idea for altering how auto insurance premiums are determined to reward drivers for every mile they don’t drive, and his idea for giving commuters the option of getting paid to not drive to work.

Litman said that each of these three ideas is increasingly being implemented, but not nearly to the extent of making a serious dent in global gasoline consumption. As much as energy conservation would benefit, he added, the impact on the environment, along with a reduction in auto-related fatalities, would be even greater societal benefits.