By using mobile phones, it was a significant shift from concepts involving bespoke equipment being installed in vehicles, or accessing OEM telematics, to a consumer product that is almost ubiquitous – smartphones. Technology that hardly anyone in either the Intelligent Transport System or transport planning community anticipated.
 |
| SmartMove website sales pitch |
What happened?
The test phase began in August 2020 with 100 Brussels Transport Authority employees, expanding in September to 2,000 citizens. The pilot costed the Brussels government €24.8 million and it ran through the pandemic, being extended to June 2022. €51 million EU grant toward a total estimated implementation cost of €68 million), ran through the pandemic and was extended to June 2022.
The app showed participants what they would have paid under the new system versus existing fees and awarded points (with real value) for driving less at peak times or switching modes. Because no real money changed hands, the trial mainly tested technical feasibility and user appeal. Preparation for full rollout included purchasing ANPR cameras in 2022 to match vehicles to accounts and fine those without an active app. Forgetting a phone, a dead battery or app failure would have risked a fine—an obvious practical weakness.
Opposition and cancellation
Perhaps the biggest critics, and understandably so, were residents (and politicians) from neighbouring Belgian states. Belgium is a federation, with Brussels being one of the three constituent states. If Brussels implemented SmartMove it would have granted Brussels residents a significant cut in vehicle registration fees in exchange for paying the charge. However, owners of vehicles registered in Wallonia or Flanders that commute into Brussels would face the charge, without any such reduction. After all, the other states would not get any revenue from it, so it would effectively be a charge on non-residents driving into Brussels. Legally, Brussels was required to implement it on a co-operative approach with the other states, and it was likely that had it proceeded it would face a legal challenge, constitutionally, due to their opposition.
However, it was opposition in Brussels that saw the programme fail, and the main reason was that it was seen as being anti-car, anti-motorist and was (wrongly) interpreted as being alongside a whole package of other measures (called GoodMove) which were designed to make driving slower (for safety), more difficult (by reallocating road space to other modes and reducing on street parking), and less attractive.
The changes to the Brussels Government, following the June 2024 election and over 600 days of coalition negotiations, were the death knell of the project. The coalition government is now led by the Reformist movement - the centre right liberal French-speaking party, in coalition with five others. The length of those negotiations indicated how fraught they were, and anti-car measures have been cancelled as a result.
On top of making driving slower and more difficult, there was opposition to the cost, and with the possibly of legal challenges from the other states, it was easy to cancel. Furthermore, actual support for the proposal was muted. A key reason for this was the emphasis on implement road pricing to reduce emissions and encourage changes in behaviour, rather than seeing it as a measure to reform the taxation of motor vehicles in a way that would reduce congestion.
Motorists are more likely to support congestion pricing if other charges are cut, and if it can be proven to reduce congestion. They are less likely to do so if it is seen as a tool to "correct" them, as if they are themselves failing by how they choose to get around, and they are especially less likely to do so if it is just seen as a new tax, with little benefit (unless you stop driving).
That’s unfortunate, because it could have been recast as a project to make driving more accessible and efficient with lower fixed fees, but better mobility at peak times. By primarily being a redesign of the tax system around motor vehicles, it could have been seen as improving fairness. Poorer people, single parents or pensioners who use cars to access employment on the urban periphery, or social services, or visit family and friends could have had lower costs of travel with lower registration fees.
What can be learned?
Leaving aside the constitutional issues, as it was bold to even think it could have been plausible to tax motorists from outside Brussels, while only compensating those within, the main mistake in Brussels was seeking to do too much in one step and to not sell it as being primarily about making motoring taxes fairer.
It is always a big deal to convince people that paying more to drive reduces congestion, but to do so without being able to convince people they would also save a lot of money from owning a car was difficult. Emission reductions are good of course, as is making public transport (especially buses) move more freely and improving the urban environment altogether, but it needs to be about the people most directly affected - the motorists. While there were some efforts made to sell congestion reduction benefits to business, these were overwhelmed by concern about the cost.
The app concept was a challenge, as it presented the risk that if you forgot your phone or it did not work, you would be fined for not paying. That should not have been the only way to interact with the system as it risked mistakes being punished.
Options of paying a flat fee for driving per day would have been easier to understand, and not hard to implement without it being punitive. The app could have been one option alongside a more blunt ANPR based scheme.
So there was a failure in policy, driven in part by technologists wanting their solution to be all encompassing. Most of all there is a failure to communicate enough to motorists and design a policy that can be acceptable to them. Furthermore to do this alongside a whole host of other measures to make driving more difficult makes the main objective look like it is anti-car. Despite the best efforts of some transport planners and politicians, perhaps the biggest lesson in the past few years politically is that the public don't like being told that what they do is wrong and they need to be corrected.
Other jurisdictions have proven that distance based road user charging can be implemented for private car owners and be acceptable, as long as it replaces another tax very clearly and transparently. Others have proven that congestion pricing can be implemented if it makes driving for those paying easier, more reliable and faster.
Unfortunately, the Brussels Government and the SmartMove programme can join the list of cities that nearly implemented congestion pricing, and help inform those who might actually do it.
