May/June 2005

Trials of a universal road pricing scheme (one applying to all vehicles) could be launched in Britain "within five or six years" in a bid to reduce growing traffic congestion, according to UK Transport Secretary Alistair Darling. And depending on time and place, prices might range from 2p per mile in rural areas as high as £1.34 on the M25 in rush hour.

These possibilities emerged in a series of briefings by the Government at the start of June, in which Darling suggested that the trial site could be a major conurbation such as the West Midlands, Manchester or Leeds.

In a deft piece of sleight of hand, Darling invoked the Government's proposed lorry road-user charging scheme as evidence that these broader proposals "would involve nothing new." In his statements, he claimed in passing that the LRUC scheme would be a fait accompli by 2008, even though his confidence ignored the current increasing unease being expressed by industry over the plan, whose details have not even been published yet.

Interest groups have been quick to point out that the two schemes have supposedly different objectives. Freight Transport Association chief executive Richard Turner said the LRUC "is not about congestion and will produce no congestion benefits."

 

The FTA strongly supports the need to tackle congestion, Turner said, but he implicitly questioned the need for the Government's proposed elaborate satellite tracking system, involving "wired-in government owned units in every vehicle." Some kind of simpler, personal-based payment system might prove cheaper and more flexible for future charging needs, he suggested, although it was not clear if the FTA actually thinks there is still time for such an approach to be adopted for the LRUC scheme.

There is no evidence that this is Darling's expectation. He made it clear in his comments that the all-vehicle charging plan would rely on satellite navigation and tracking systems, which the Government expects to be standard equipment in vehicles by the time the plan would be put into effect. But he admitted it would be more than ten years before technology would make a universal scheme feasible.

Darling emphasised that the envisaged road pricing scheme would replace fuel tax and road tax rather than running alongside them, although environmental groups quickly protested that this could prompt more users to adopt fuel-hungry vehicles.

• The UK Government will pay £26.9 million in consultancy and other fees this year in connection with preparatory work on the Lorry Road User Charging scheme, according to its LRUC department. Altogether it will have paid £39 million between 2002 and 2005.

These figures were released by LRUC under the Freedom of Information Act, following requests for the information by the logistics journal Motor Transport. But revenue forecasts for the scheme were not disclosed on the basis that no definitive figures exist, and current projections were under preparation for informing future policy decisions.