By Andy McCue, 1 December 2006 12:25
NEWS
Technology-based 'pay-as-you-drive' road-charging must be introduced within the next 10 years to tackle congestion and deliver £28bn-worth of benefits to the UK economy, according to a new government-backed report by former British Airways CEO Sir Rod Eddington.
The Eddington Report was commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Transport last year to advise the government on the long-term links between transport and the UK's economic productivity, growth and stability.
The UK transport system supports 61 billion passenger journeys and 250 billion tonne-kilometres of goods moved a year but the report claims congestion on the roads, if unchecked, will increase costs to businesses and freight by over £10bn a year as well as £12bn-worth of wasted time for households within 20 years.
Speaking at the Commonwealth Club in London this morning Eddington warned: "The UK cannot build itself out of current road congestion. Where road space is limited this needs to be utilised efficiently."
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Eddington said congestion-targeted road-pricing could be worth up to £28bn to the UK economy by 2025 and should be a question of "how, not if", although he admitted it is not feasible in the short-term.
"The technology for implementing this does not exist and costs are unknown - but for me, in the end - road pricing is an economic no-brainer. I know that there are barriers to making this happen: we must learn lessons of pilot schemes; the technology must be developed and be cost-effective; overall costs must be reasonable," he said.
Earlier this year the government set up a £10m fund to encourage IT companies to develop the black box satellite-tracking technology that would be needed for a national road-charging scheme in a series of local pilot projects that could eventually lead to motorists being charged up to £1.50 a mile for some journeys at some times.
The Eddington Report claims a 10 per cent reduction in car journey time in urban areas can deliver productivity improvements of 1.1 per cent.
Comments
There are 44 comments. Join the discussion
1. Charles Smith
Total nonsense - it is another stealth tax with negative benefits for UK Industry. Road Charging will be cumbersome and inefficient, just like the London Congestion Charge.
If this Government was serious about reducing road usage they could simply introduce a Carbon Tax on the price of motor fuel.
This doesn't need any complex IT system GPS or not to introduce.
2. Rosaleen McCarthy
Road tax and petrol tax already mean that driving is heavily penalised. We need a sensible fraction of this taxation to fund road engineering and joined-up public transport - not another (doomed?) Government IT initiative
Eddington also suggests that there should be no new/improved north-south train links and an expansion of busines class airports.
Who could have guessed that Mr E was a former British Airlines CEO?
3. anonymous
This whole concept is based on a faulty premise: that people travel in their cars by choice at rush hour.
People travel by car at rush hour because:
* There is no practical alternative.
* They have to work the hours their empolyers set for them.
* Governments have failed to plan properly resulting in people not be able to afford to live near where they work.
Thus this becomes yet another tax which will drive up wage demands, across the board not just for those who drive, which will make British industry even more uncompetitive and drive up inflation so that we have even higher interest rates etc eventually leading to recession and high unemployment.
4. Rob
Relax people, I've said it before, I'll say it again, it's a government IT project, it'll never get off the ground.
I'm still priasing the company that stuffed up the ID card project, great bit of sabotage.
Hopefully the IT company handling the Pay-per-mile scheme will stuff that up for us, at the end of the day, they are human as well and do they also want to pay to get into work?
5. Radical Meldrew
£1.50 per mile @ 70mph = £105ph !!!
I don't think anyone will be using the roads. Oh except MP's who will either be exempt or able to reclaim it from the public purse.
6. Tony Mudd
Another way, is to use the existing roads more efficiently. Use software to control the spacing between cars and their speed on the motorway, and you could get many more cars, moving faster & safer.
Perhaps lanes reserved for car-trains.
7. sandosh
Instead of making the public transport system better people talk about using technology for day today activities. When they can't even deliver systems like NHS IT system or CCTV which over charges or IRS tax system they talk IT system for pay-per-mile.
Are we living in 22nd century or 21st century
sandy
8. Jeff Howarth
Why do they need to waste money creating more charging systems for taxing road use.
they have one that charges for road use proportionae to the size of enigne and th espeed you drive - its called fuel tax.
Its already set up and charges fairly.
Yet again they intend so spend millions creating a duplicate system and lets bet th eproiject is late and costs double.
(and by the way - no I dont agree with increased taxes on motoring - but at least they could stop wasting money they do collect)
9. Mikal Dunne
This is daft political hot air. If those in Westminster could actual do the job they've been elected to do there would be no need for the voicing of such rubbish. I live 40 miles from work and the train journey is over 2 hours long and there is no bus route to there from where I live. Last week I had to travel from one end of the country to the other - the cost of the train ticket made the only choice for my journey to be one by car.
10. Bob Nicholas
The government already has the technology in place to apply a per mile charge. Its called the fuel tax. The biggest gas guzzlers pay the most, while the small engined eco friendly cars pay the least. This is just another money raising scam and the motorist, as usual, is the one to bear the brunt without seeing any benefits. I believe the old term was "Highway Robbery"
11. anonymous
The cost of the technology as a barrier is complete tosh. Take a look at ALL urban road surfaces when you next drive, and ask yourself WHY there are so many loops laid into the road. Then look at the gantries overhead motorways and imagine they have number-plate recognition - they DO. The Government has been putting the technology for road-charging in place for years, now they are engineering the socially-acceptable arguments.
Too late to argue, it's here.
12. Graham Horton
Road charging works by making people change the way and time they get to work. Why not start changing working times before this blunt system comes into force. Once the system comes into force we will all be forced to change our routese and start times.
13. anonymous
I have to agree with everyone else that has posted so far, but, possibly more worrying is the presence of the "Black Box" that makes "Road Charging" possible. It needs to know who and where you are at any given time to be able to charge you the appropiate rate for the road you are on, so the potential is practically limitless; electronic maximum/average speed checks, electronic parking checks, location checks, or tracking etc, etc, etc not all of these are necessarily bad things but are we prepared to pay the total price?
14. anonymous
To improve productivity but freight onto the rail network or prevent lorries overtaking on motorways at peak hours!
Adding a pay per use won't just push up wage claims but the price if goods and services as well.
15. BillK
This seems to be another part of the government plan to always know where every member of the population is at any time. And preferably to watch them doing whatever it is that they are doing, so they can fine them or arrest them for doing it.
Road-pricing at £105ph? Just wait till automatic speeding fines are added on as well. And don't try doing a U-turn or stopping in a box junction - that'll be another £100 per 'offence'.
16. anonymous
Goodbye civil liberties, hello big brother.
Whilst I have no problem with companies monitoring positions and speed of their employees,
as a law-abiding private individual I do not require the government monitoring me everywhere I go.
Congestion is being used as an excuse to get this in by the back door, just as UK terrorism was used an excuse to invade Iraq.
17. Peter Shearman
An alternative viewpoint...
Road use has been heavily subsidised by government spending from general taxation since the war, and is far cheaper than it should be compared to other modes of transport in the UK.
A road-pricing scheme would adjust this basic inefficiency in the UK economic system.
More than this, it cuts emmissions, congestion, and makes us more competitive. There are a number of journeys that are made that are unnecessary, and persuading people to not make these/use public transport is a crucial part of tackling emissions and congestion.
It will, of course, need to be supplemented by additional investment in public transport, but we should all be more open-minded about this fundamentally fairer and more progressive policy.
18. John H Woods
Bob, you forgot something...
Although fuel tax is a perfectly efficient way of taxing driving, it doesn't allow you, as a government, to know exactly where all your citizens are 24 hours a day.
This is not about taxation ... it's about surveillance ...
19. Anon
Your all missing the point. This is not about collecting road tax its about knowing where every body is. Just think what a wonderful Utopia Britain will be when our glorious government can pinpoint every move a criminal or a terrorist makes. They can also pinpoint anybody they don't like and track them across the country. Britain will be the safest country in the world.
20. John
As always with this government another stealth tax. Agreed however that it is unlikely to ever get off the ground. If it does it will just end up causing massive congestion on all the minor roads in the UK. Interesting that it will make flying look even cheaper!! I'm sure there are no hidden agendas!
Either way the problem is wether it works or not it will cost us, the tax payers, £Billions over the coming decades and we will still be sitting in our cars getting nowhere fast.
21. Amy Mathias
I think the key word in the title above is "will", eventually, many years after its first been implemented. This is ridiculous. For the first few years we will just be paying for the cost of the scheme. If the government really want to make a change to the way we view our cars, why not charge everyone for the fuel that they use on our roads, oh wait, we already do...
A much better way would be to incentivise: make hybrid cars affordable, tax breaks for employers who can allow for working at home, encourage a safer society so that parents can permit their children to walk to school. etc. etc. Save the extreme methods for if all else fails.
22. anonymous
If it raises 28bn you can bet it'll cost 75bn to implement
23. anonymous
I can only just afford to run my house and car on what I earn as it is, adding this extra tax, and any extra tax like this could be the last straw, and will see me loose all that I have worked hard to own. If the money went into something I could actually see and feel benefit of, I might not have so much of a problem, as the benefit may help my situation. But it would seem that the funding they get from the car owners of this country goes into other things, as will I'm sure this environmental tax, with the UK being such a small island in the scale of the world, it won't have any effect, yet we will still have to pay, because the Government see it as an ideal get rich quick scheme.
Maybe I should give up now, become a baby factory, which will then will cost the Government more to put what I produce through education and health care, and also get paid double what I earn trying to make an honest living, and have all my bills paid for for me.
24. anonymous
If the Government want to reduce congestion during peak hours then they need to do something about school traffic! The US provides buses to get kids to school - why don't we do the same here. The reduction in congestion would provide the savings needed to pay for the buses (I reckon that at least 30% of the traffic I see in the morning is parents ferrying their kids to school).
Road charging will hit lower income groups hardest - the well-off will carry on using their cars whatever. Not exactly what you would expect from a labour government.
25. anonymous
What has happened to getting freight off the rods and onto Railways? For all butn the journey from the Rail terminal to the shop this would take most large trucks off the road and save loads of Carbon and time stuck in delays.
26. Roger Ash
Can someone explain how taking 28 Billion away from the people will benefit the economy by 28 billion? It seems to me (judging by past history) that this will boost the governments coffers by about 8 billion and waste 20 billion on overspending on such things as defence and ill-conceived and poorly implemented government IT projects.
27. J.D. Astin
Road Tax (Disc) was originally known as "The Road Fund Liscense" but the revenue was highjacked by government. We already pay per mile through sky high pump prices and any additional burden should be vigourously resisted. Would it not be better to develop technology to ensure all vehicles were controled at not more than the statutory speed limit (with the ability of drivers to be able to override this control if situations demended it - but then be liable to a hefty charge for non compliance unless they were able to PROVE a genuine emergency).
As a country resident, a car is essential, we are 15 miles from the nearest railway station with other stations some 25 miles away, the nearest shopping is 4 miles away and the nearest Sub Post Office 1/12 miles away on roads that, even if we were fit enough to walk are unsafe for pedestrians. Bus travel, although free is meagre and unless we had all day to, say, visit the doctor, (and be able to walk up a 1/4 mile hill from the bus stop), again is a non starter.
When will civil servants join the real world on limited income and appreciate that older people are not as able to cope as they may be? When thet reach their "Old Age" or infirmity they are in for one hell of a shock!
28. Marcus
It is interesting to read the comments above, but unless there is protest the government will go ahead and all of the doom merchants predictions will probably come true. The only legitimate protest in this country is via the democratic process. So VOTE THEM OUT. -- Excuse my bellowing-- but there must be at least some of you voted this lot in at the last election.
Remember the difference between Labour and Conservative is state control and individual enterprise. (although Cameron doesn’t seem to have grasped it yet!) Guess what this is ACTUALLY all about.
29. Dave Loewy
Our one-trick pony government only ever sees one solution: Tax the punters to fill the coffers.
More creative solutions, such as limiting HGVs to the inside lane of motorways at certain times - as they do in Europe - or allowing over-taking on either side are never considered.
Didn't they hang Dick Turpin? Perhaps we do the same to his successors.
30. Godric Beresford-Jones
Population, population, population...
Yes, we have reached the point where population density and personal freedom are no longer compatable.
The reason that it has to be road charging and not fuel tax is that you can force people to travel at different times... until the roads are full 24/7!
Lets face it, there are simply too many people in certain areas of the uk, and population is the subject that NEVER gets discussed.
The answer; move, and help make space for the guys left in the cage, while the government carries on with build, build, build!
thx
godric bj
31. anonymous
I live 13 miles from work and 4 miles from the nearest Railway station. That station has a direct train to within 1 mile of work.
The problem for me is to get to the railway station by home using public transport takes 1.5hours (I would need to get a bus from home to the centre of leicester and then another bus out again, round trip of nearly 20 miles).
Driving to work takes about 20 minutes in the morning along empty country roads. Where is the congestion on this journey and what would be the benefit to using the public transport.
Cost car to work 13 miles at 7pence per mile = 91pence (Ford fiesta 1.4 diesel)
Cost on public transport: home to railway station on bus £3.00ish, cost of train ??? never bothered looking into it as the bus is over 3 times the price to get 4 miles up the road.
What will happen when we all decide to use the push bike to get to work (I have done it but it is only just within distance to be pracical). Massive loss of revenue for the govournment. Have they thought of that.
32. Ian Savell
Flat rate taxes benefit the rich and are unfair to the rest of us.
I just drove 400 miles round trip to take my family to my nephew's 18th birthday celebration. It took 8 hours due to distance and 2 more due to congestion. I would have gone on the train, but that involves 6 transport mode changes, 4 miles walking with luggage in the rain and anyway the trains don't run at the weekend due to engineering closures.
Charging me to drive would make me poorer but it wouldn't stop me doing it. If I was richer I could use taxis at each end of the rail journey to minimise inconvenience but that would cost about £50 and wouldn't reduce congestion one jot - in fact my taxi would take me into the heart of the congested city rather than round the edge.
This tax proposal is an apallingly unfair on the less well off majority, but that is what we have come to expect from New Labour.
33. anonymous
I am totally in favour of pay per mile road charges, as long as all of the other taxes that burden the motorist are dropped. If they are in addition to the myriad of current taxes applied to motorists, then I for one will leave the UK and go to almost any other country in the world, where taxes are minute in comparison with those already imposed in the UK. I must admit that if such a tax was imposed in addition to those already in place, it would ease congestion: we would have no employment so there would be no need to go anywhere.
34. anonymous
As the majority of the earlier comments have pointed out, this whole pay-per-mile road charging scam has two purposes. First to steal even more of our money than the government already does and then waste it on pointless, useless, unproductive civil servants and pen pushers, tap-dancing lessons for one legged illegal immigrants, fraud by the Europen Community etc etc., and secondly, and even more worrying, to keep track of every citizen, just like the equally pointless, expensive and dangerous ID card scheme. It's no-one's business where I go, least of all the Governments, and while the previous comment that we should vote them out MAY offer us an opportunity to kill the scheme, I'm afraid that, on the evidence to date, Tony Blair Mark 2 - sorry, David Cameroon - doesn't understand what REALLY concerns the average person in this country. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the environment and everything to do with tax and restriction of liberty.
35. Simon
For the majority, they do not choose to sit in traffic jams, they do it through necessity - the boss says when they go to work and go home, realities of putting food on the table dictate where people work, and to a large extent economics and public policy dictate where people live. For this majority, the only benefit they might see for their extra tax is a very slight improvement as a small minority (the lucky few who have a choice) change their travelling modes/times.
trouble is, the answer to the problem is not to start from where we are !
We need to go back to the 1960's and NOT close a load of railways that we are now missing.
We need to go back and change planning policies so that we don't segregate industry and residential into completely separate areas so that if people want to "live near work" then it's actually possible.
We need to go back and make policy to encourage new industrial/distribution sites have rail as an option instead of buidling them as far from any rail access as possible. And on that, we need to go back and kick some sense into the old BR management who (in at least one case I know of) refused to allow rail access to a potential large customer even though the customer was willing to pay for the work needed.
Trouble is, it's too f***ing late now. The industrial areas are built without rail access and it would be virtually impossible and/or very expensive to go back and retro fit it. Residential areas are no segregated, and no-ones going to want to be the ones to change that.
But one thing that isn't going to help ... is taxing people who don't have a choice and who won't get any benefit.
36. D Fletcher
Godric Beresford-Jones is the only person apart from myself who understands the true nature of this problem.
My action on this has been to write to my local Member of Parliament about it, and my suggested solution. She should be reading it today.
37. anonymous
its all to do with the fact that the world is runnig out of oil and if we dont do something the demand will be more than the supply also i would be pritty certain that 1.50 per mile would onli be in the center of london
38. anonymous
Interesting that the timescales tie in nicely with the Trident replacement proposal (and the income I should imagine) cynic, me?
39. Adrian Jones
£28Bn....Hhhhmmm...should see the Government Ministers with new cars, bathrooms, kitchens, great pension deals.
Taxation isn't the answer. None of the £28 billion will reach the roads. We pay countless billions and see nothing of it, I lie...only when a road deterioates into a death trap do we see action. We're faced with a Personality Tax (ID Cards), Green Tax, ever increasing Council Tax and newer forms to charge more, unfair GROT (Government Rip Off Tax - VAT (No value in adding 17.% tax to anything)), increases in National Insurance for hospitals who are no in a worse state 2-3 years on.
What have we seen for all this.....worsening school systems, road choas, illegal immigration out of control, bad health care, pensions crisis, a subsidised infaltion rate that will crash any month now, increasing crime, subsidised poverty....I could go on.
This country is in the dogs and looks like staying in the dogs.....a result of this and previous Governments. We need to look at how we can bring value back to the people...not tax them to find the solution.
40. anonymous
It's quite simple, if you don't want these madcap schemes to happen, just vote them out...
41. Andy
In reference to the statement of a Utopia Britain.
This is absolutely rubbish. Yes the government will be able to keep an eye on terrorists and criminals but it also means they have the ability to know where we are and when.
I can' t speak for everyone but I don't want the government knowing my every move. What happened to being free. With this scheme in place it is going to ruin our lives.
And finally who is going to pay for these systems to be installed. It will be us, like the ID card scheme they want us all to have an ID card yet we are the ones going to have to pay.
42. anonymous
So its not a scare tactic so that we will accept the chancellors new budget that he will put forward and think that we are lucky to get away with whatever new taxes he puts forward this time? Cynical? Possibly all of us...
43. Anon
Sorry Andy - The Utopia comment should have come with an irony warning.
44. anonymous
I cannot see how this form of tax could possibly be fair to everyone. As an example,If you live in the country side with one bus out & one bus in.If you decide to use your car you have to pay for it,through vehicle tax,taxed car insurance,M.O.T.Petrol tax as everyone else does.So another tax would be ridiculous,of course it will bring in £28billion +,but it will not stop there because the people running it will want more wages so each year it will go up.Certain people will be excluded from it such as politicians,Rich C.I.O.'s etc.Like the Pole Tax,why don't the Politicians wise up,we don't want it and we don't need it.The "Cotton wool" people of this world ought to come in to our world where sometimes it's cold and nasty.