For whom the road tolls: perceived benefits, commuter segmentation, and congestion pricing acceptability in Hyderabad

This paper investigates commuter perceptions of congestion pricing (CP) benefits in Hyderabad, India. Previous experience suggests that limited knowledge of how users perceive CP before implementation may undermine policy adoption. Identifying and examining car users’ perceived CP-related benefits constitutes a key research question. Based on a face-to-face survey yielding 435 complete responses, the study employs benefit-based commuter segmentation and Meta Ranking to identify and prioritize perceived advantages across heterogeneous user groups. Results show that, although travel-time minimization emerges as the most important perceived benefit overall, respondents are far from homogeneous, with four identified commuter segments prioritizing different benefit bundles. These findings underscore the need for a differentiated approach to policy design and communication, while also highlighting the role of stakeholder engagement and transparent revenue use to promote CP acceptability. The proposed methodology offers a scalable tool for context-specific policy analysis aimed at maximizing the ex-ante probability of acceptance.