Dead end for road user charging

The government will definitely not go ahead with plans national road charging – a system of ‘pay-as-you-go’ driving which had once been a flagship policy.

The transport minister, Lord Adonis, said: “It will not be in the manifesto for the next election. This is not the time to be putting this before the British people. I don’t believe as Britain is coming out of recession and motorists are feeling under pressure, that this is the time to put road charging on the agenda.”

A spokesperson for the Environmental Transport Association (ETA), an organisation that has been campaigning for road user charging for twenty years, said: “This decision is driven by politics rather than the pressing need to properly manage our roads.”

The Government is carrying on with a series of trials which pave the way for local pricing schemes.

Why national road-user charging is inevitable

The level of traffic traditionally drops during an economic downturn, but in the long term the trend is for it to increase. The ETA believes that increasing levels of congestion and falling revenue from tax on fuel as a result of increasingly efficient vehicles and the advent of alternative fuels makes national road pricing inevitable. Such a system would cut congestion and save motorists money as there would no longer be the need for fuel duty or vehicle excise duty.

The organisation believes concerns about invasion of privacy are unfounded

If not national road user charging then what?

The government plans a programme of lane widening, trunk road upgrading and junction improvements across the country. The £60 million Urban Congestion Performance Fund could help pay for local congestion charging schemes in these areas.

At a glance	Government plans to ease congestion
Motorway hard shoulder	adapted to become toll lane, or high-occupancy vehicle lane or crawler lane for lorries and caravans
Trunk roads	upgraded/widened
Junctions	Improved
Your local area	£60 million fund may result in local congestion charging