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Purpose — The research was designed to explore people's willingness/ability to understand complex road user charges. However, the results raise issues about respondent engagement and ecological validity and so have important implications for questionnaire practice.

Methodology — Computer-based experiments administered in the United Kingdom and Germany gathered respondents' estimates of road user charges along with their response latencies, personal characteristics, acceptance of road charging, assessments of task complexity and attitudes to analytical tasks.

Findings — The results demonstrate questionnaire learning effects and show the effect of personal characteristics on the accuracy and speed of questionnaire completion. The tendency of males, younger people and students to complete the task more quickly is interesting as is the fact that fewer and smaller errors were made by participants who claimed to gain satisfaction from completing a task which has involved mental effort. Engagement was seen to vary with personal characteristics, attitudes to decision making, task complexity and acceptance of the policy being tested. A key finding is that disengagement was more evident among participants who were broadly supportive of road charging than among those who were not.

Implications — The findings have important implications for the design of data collection exercises and for the interpretation of resulting data. It is concluded that repeated choice experiments are an inappropriate source of data on responses to unfamiliar circumstances. The collection of data on response latencies and the inclusion of questions on respondents' attitudes to task completion is a strongly recommended addition to standard questionnaire practice. The extent to which disengagement in an experimental context is, or is not, indicative of real-world behaviour is an important and urgent subject for further research.

In February 2003, London became the first city in the UK to introduce a comprehensive congestion‐charging scheme, whereby road users are charged on a per day basis in order to use the road space. In response to concerted lobbying, a number of sectors and user groups have been granted exemptions from the charge. This paper explores the likely effect of congestion charging and the case for exempting construction delivery vehicles. A case study of a live construction project currently being undertaken in the city of London is used to illustrate the impact of the scheme. Based on this case example, it would seem that the impact of the scheme on construction companies has been fairly benign to date, but concerns relate to the longer term effect of charging on the future regeneration of city centres. Furthermore, it would appear that there are lessons to be learnt from the industry's apparent inability to bring to bear its collective weight to lobby for exemptions, which leaves it vulnerable to similar schemes under consideration in other cities both nationally and internationally.

The aim of this paper is to add to understanding of how cities function. Specifically, through the lens of power relationships in political organisations, it seeks to study the manner in which accounting and politics are involved in the development of city transport strategies.

The paper uses a comparative case study approach in which documents and media coverage are key elements of the visualising of the city.

The findings are on a number of levels. First, the study explains the efficacy of congestion charging systems. Second, in the politicised organisation of the city, the context in which policy makers sit is crucial in the elaboration of strategies. Third, the adoption of calculative practices such as congestion charging may reflect political rationality rather than actual need.

The focus of the study has been cities – a neglected field, but one with considerable research potential. Second, the mobilisation of concepts of power, as articulated by Clegg, Flyvbjerg and Clegg, represent a novel contribution to the accounting literature.

The Swedish government is likely to implement longer and heavier road freight vehicles, so-called high-capacity vehicles (HCVs), in the near future. The purpose of this paper is to analysis the expected effects on the whole transport system regarding tonne-kilometres, vehicle-kilometres on road, CO₂ and socio-economics with three possible implementation strategies (HCVs on all roads, a designated road network and a designated road network with a kilometre-based truck charge) and two vehicle types (74 t/25.25 m and 74 t/34 m).

Calculations are based on two well-established scenarios for transport development in Sweden. Changes per tonne-kilometre are modelled for ten product groups with considerations taken to their transport networks. Socio-economic effects are analysed using the net present value rating method over a 40-year period.

The study shows the increase in demand for transport and the modal shift, from rail and sea to road, in terms of tonne-kilometres, vehicle-kilometres and CO₂ emissions for three implementation strategies of HCVs in two scenarios. All implementation strategies show a positive social net-benefit with the introduction of HCVs.

The results reveal potential benefits to the implementation of HCVs. The results are limited by possible over/under-estimations of effects considered in the calculations, due to uncertainties and assumptions.

The results highlight expected levels of modal shift and induced transport for different HCV implementation strategies and how they depend on transport and climate policies and the expected growth of tonne-kilometres.

The calculations consider socio-economic effects, particularly from increased CO₂ emissions due to modal shift and induced traffic, which is lacking in previous studies. To balance conflicting economic and environmental goals, the findings indicate that the implementation of HCVs could be accompanied by other policy measures. The findings are based on the Swedish context, but the model can be adapted to other countries or regions and to study other freight transport reforms.