(07 Dec 04)

Speaking at a conference in London today, RAC Foundation chairman David Holmes will say that, unless the Government can win public acceptance for road pricing, the policy will fail.

Not all motorists will agree with this, but the Foundation's position is that "the intellectual case for road pricing is made. It provides an effective way of making the best use of scarce road capacity - far more efficient than the present crude instrument of fuel duty or parking charges. Road pricing also provides signals about the need for investment in roads. And it ensures that road transport covers all its external costs."

There's likely to be more general agreement about David Holmes's remark that road congestion is Britain is the worst in Europe: "It is a threat to the efficiency of our systems for distributing goods and for people's ability to go about their business.

"Road pricing would be a fundamental change in the way that about 30 million people pay for the roads they depend on to maintain their way of life. Some - people in rural areas who avoid congested roads at peaks times - would gain from the change. Others, notably people in urban areas who have to travel by car at peak times, would pay more than they do now."

The important thing is how can the increased costs be justified to those motorists in urban areas? And there's the question of the extent to which they can be expected to vary their patterns of travel to mitigate the cost.

According to the Foundation, a nation-wide road pricing scheme might raise revenue of around £8 billion per year. How much of that would go to reducing fuel duty, or be invested in a really good 21st-century urban public transport system?

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