It was also the Telegraph that broke the story last October that these plans had apparently been shelved, or “back burnered” as it was put. It’s now clear that far from being shelved the plans for tests into the viability of national road charging are now at an advanced stage, with trials set to start in January 2010.

Personally I see little problem with the concept of a national road-charging scheme, however it seems clear to me that these trials will be a multi-million pound waste of money with huge potential profits for consultancy firms but little, if any, chance of the plans actually reaching fruition. It seems entirely likely that there will be at least one change of government before any national road-charging scheme is introduced and I don’t believe that any party will have the political will to see this through.

It’s only necessary to look at what’s happening in Manchester at the moment to see that motorists and the business community will use any argument possible to promote their own self-interested views on having to pay for the congestion they cause.

The first argument the Government need to get past is that of the Civil Liberties camp. While the real-time tracking of vehicles seems to scare these people to death, they seem to happily ignore the fact that they can already be tracked by their mobile phone usage, by ANPR cameras, by CCTV and by their use of credit cards and banking facilities. Presumably, if the will was present, measures could be built into any road-charging system to avoid its use to actively track and report on motorists’ movements; although law-enforcement agencies already seem to be keen to make use of their ability to track people by the other means mentioned.

Motorists will no doubt scream that they are already paying too much for motoring costs, particularly fuel, and that they’re already paying a yearly flat-rate charge (VED or ‘Road Tax’) AND a charge that is effectively based on their fuel consumption and the miles travelled (excise duty on road fuel). The argument goes that the amount the government receive from motorists far exceeds the amount that they spend on road maintenance and new road-building.

The Telegraph here, are pushing the headline rate of £1.30 per mile; leading one contributor to comment: “On the specific topic of road pricing: at £1.30 per mile, the round trip to visit my elderly mother (motorway all the way) will cost me an ADDITIONAL £780. What kind of world are these people living in?”. The £1.30 per mile is of course the proposed rate for using the most congested roads in the country at absolute peak times. Given the apparent hardship (and moaning) caused by the average 3-4p/mile increase in fuel prices over the last few months I would say that it’s entirely unlikely that the Government would try and introduce an average charge per mile of anything approaching this claimed amount.

Of course I have no information at all about the proposed charges, other than what’s been suggested by Government sources and speculated in the press already. Based on what I’ve read, common sense and maybe a bit of wishful thinking, I could imagine that Vehicle Excise Duty (‘road tax’) could be abolished (there’s no need for yearly insurance checks now that the system’s automated) and that 15-20p/litre could be cut off fuel prices, putting our fuel prices on a par with the rest of Europe, and a corresponding amount, say 3p mile, charged as the base level charge for uncongested roads during off-peak hours. During peak times the most congested routes (think Hammersmith Road, the M25 at Heathrow or the main commuter route into any major city) would be charged at something approaching the top end of the scale. The extra charge above the base level would be a disincentive to using commuter routes at peak times, much like the proposed Manchester congestion charge.

As the decrease in car use due to the current high fuel prices has shown, car use isn’t entirely necessary in many situations – we only use them because they’re convenient and, at least before the higher fuel prices, cheap to use compared to the alternatives. We all know that traffic congestion is a problem in this country and most of us accept that we can’t cover every inch of space in the country with tarmac to solve the problem. Unfortunately many of us also take the attitude that other motorists are the ones causing the congestion and our own journeys are somehow more important.

The reality is that the motorway and major road network has been developed over the years to encourage the economic development of the country as a whole and specific regions in particular, primarily by allowing good access for freight traffic. That the improved road system has also encouraged extended ‘drive-to-work’ zones and the emergence of the long-distance commuter is to most of us an unwelcome side-effect.

There’s no absolute requirement for anybody to commute 70 miles each way by car at peak times. People only choose to do it because the opportunity’s available to them and the financial rewards gained from driving such a long distance make it worthwhile. Remove the opportunity, or make it financially unattractive, and people are quick to find alternative solutions. If the road network wasn’t there, or it became prohibitively expensive to use it at peak times then people could choose to work closer to home, or live closer to work, or commute by another means, or even work from home. Everyone must accept that the road network can never expand indefinitely to meet all the demands that will potentially be made of it.

The final group who will demand consideration is the road transport industry, who of course have their own set of priorities, foremost of which is to be allowed to compete with foreign hauliers on an equal basis, without being crippled by the higher fuel tax levied in the UK. I wonder if it could possibly be the demands of the road transport industry that have caused the Government to re-examine their options on road pricing.

If VED on commercial vehicles was abolished, or at least reduced to a reasonable level, and duty on fuel was cut so that it was on a par with other European countries then the UK transport industry would have the level playing field they’ve been demanding since the early nineties. It’s clear that UK based commercial vehicles could be charged using the same system that would apply to private vehicles, although in the case of commercial vehicles a flat-rate per mile charging scheme would make more sense, rather than the proposed congestion based system. The question would remain on how foreign lorries would be charged for using the UK road network.

In April 2002, in response to fuel price protests, the Government concluded that foreign operators should be charged for using the UK road system on the basis of the miles travelled on UK roads. This system was originally to have been introduced by early 2006 but the proposal was subsequently quietly dropped, without too much fanfare and, surprisingly, little if any action by the Road Haulage Association, the Freight Transport Association et al.

As far as I know there was never any firm reason given for the dropping of the Lorry Road User Charge scheme, but reading between the lines it seems to me that the sticking point may have been the problem of interoperability between the UK’s proposed system and systems proposed for other EU states. Germany has had just such system in operation since January 2005 without any worries about interoperability – manual toll payments are made if the vehicle isn’t fitted with the automatic charging equipment.

Could it be that the Government have resurrected their plans for national road charging in order to introduce per mile charging for foreign registered vehicles and placate the increasingly rebellious road haulage industry, while covering the overall cost of introducing these measures by including them in the costs for general road-charging? The timing of this apparent U-turn seems to point firmly towards this, but could it be that the Government have just ‘suggested’ to the road haulage industry that the upcoming trials are leading towards the road charging situation that the haulage industry wants, merely to keep the hauliers from any embarrassing protests until after the proposed trials have been concluded?

Due to their current unpopularity it seems clear that the current Government are likely to avoid calling a general election until the absolute latest opportunity; by 3rd June 2010 at the latest. Considering the political benefits to be gained from avoiding the hauliers’ ongoing fuel protests while handing over the political hot potato of road-charging to their successors it seems perhaps hardly surprising that the Government have adopted this new stance.

The plans for the latest protest were reported by the Manchester Evening News here. It makes very interesting reading, even if it is wildly innacurate and slightly sensationalist.

According to the article “In June, 80 lorry drivers – plus around two dozen other motorists – took part in another Saturday morning go-slow convoy on the M6, starting from Lymm and heading south”. Actually I counted 55 vehicles including an ice-cream van, a cement mixer, a couple of limos and a few couriers‘ vans. Maybe the spare lorry drivers were in the limos. Oh, and they went north from Lymm, not south. An excellent piece of reporting.

Anyway, back to the planned protest on 19th July. apparently there were to have been at least 100 people involved, setting off from Lymm Services (Poplar 2000 truckstop) and heading into Manchester.

Skip forward to the day after the protest and the MEN story here is rather more realistic. “A PLANNED weekend protest against the price of fuel ended up with just five lorries, five cars and two motor bikes taking part.”

There’s a few quotes from people saying how strongly everyone feels about fuel prices, my favourite is from a Mr Gwil Ritchie who said that he had seen his costs go up by 35 per cent for fuel for his business costing him thousands of pounds and apparently added “You can’t put 35 per cent on top of your prices”.

This is quite possibly more innacurate reporting from the MEN, or maybe Mr Ritchie actualy believes that a 35% increase in fuel prices corresponds to a 35% rise in overall operating costs.

Without doubt anyone in the transport industry who doesn’t put their prices up to account for the increase in fuel prices is heading for trouble, but a 35% increase in fuel costs doesn’t need a 35% in rates to pay for it.

Anyone who says that customers ‘won’t pay’ rates which reflect the rising cost of fuel needs to have a serious think about the damage that THEY are doing to the transport industry. Your competitors have exactly the same fuel costs as you do and the customers still need their stuff moving. If everyone takes a realistic view on pricing then there will be no need for these fuel protests and we can contine to run our businesses while benefiting from the lower numbers of cars on the road.

According to the MEN article from 13th July *Britain’s Revolting spokesman* Duncan Barrow said “People have had enough. I commute in every day [from Crewe] and my weekly fuel bill is £75. It is not sustainable.”

No, an 80 mile round-trip commute clearly isn’t sustainable, why not move closer to Manchester or get a job closer to home, or even get the train?

There’s a VERY slim chance that the truckers will get their rebate (which will be bad news for us) but I can’t see that there’s any chance whatsoever that it would be extended to van operators.

The government are even refusing ‘essential user rebates’ to the Police, the NHS, the Fire Service and local authorities. That will result in a budget deficit for these genuinely ‘essential users’ and huge council tax increases for us next year – more importantly though, if the NHS aren’t getting a rebate for shifting sick people to A&E are we likely to get one for shifting some worthless junk around the country?

“Scores of lorry drivers” apparently, well maybe just about ‘scores’. 55 vehicles in total I made it, including 5 or so bikes, an ice-cream van, a cement mixer, a couple of limos and a few vans. It wouldn’t have caused any problems at all if the police hadn’t blocked the outside lane.
 

I can’t be arsed explaining how I’ve formed my opinion but I actually think that there’s a very good chance that high fuel prices will be good for the same day courier industry in the long term.

Not particularly good for anyone in the short term I admit – but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

Roll on the £2 litre.

That would that be the same Scottish Parliament that doesn’t control fuel duty anyway and is already screaming at Darling that they want a share of the increased oil revenues in order that they can subsidise fuel in Scotland.

If you wanted to send a message to Alistair Darling wouldn’t you be better delivering the petition to his constituency office? 22A Rutland Square, Edinburgh, EH1 2BB, 0131 476 2552
 

someone wrote:
Maybe the government should put a set rate of duty on fuel, not a %??

Therfore protecting us in future from increased duty based soley on the trade cost of fuel?

It already is a set rate of duty, it’s never been a percentage rate. Currently 52.35p/litre and if fuel was £2 or 95p/litre the duty would still be 52.35p/litre.

If they get their way it will be cheaper to operate a 7.5t than your Luton.

Same as the RHA demands everyone got behind – rebated blue diesel for operators of O licenced vehicles. Useless for most ‘couriers’.

Unless these larger companies are secretly refining their own oil they have exactly the same business pressures as you and I, often with the added problems of high corporate overheads and shareholder accountability. If they’re able to ‘enforce’ rate increases it’s only because they had the foresight to enter into contracts that allow them to do so. The only real advantage that the ‘big boys’ have over smaller companies is more efficient vehicle utilisation, and a well run smaller company can beat the best of the big boys on that score.
 

“Transaction2007 have decided to release the date and time of protest action earlier than scheduled. This is to enable the motorist and public to better prepare themselves for the coming action. This will be a nationwide protest extending to Northern and Southern Ireland.A date of Saturday 15th December 2007 at 10:00am has been decided for protest action. This date was decided by members as the best possible to enable those who would normally be working during the week to attend. This action will be initiated at a refinery or storage depot somewhere near you. Anyone wishing to support action is requested to make your way there at the alotted time. Transaction again wish to emphasise the importance of legal protesting.

Further; the members of Transaction2007, many being RHA members themselves, request that the Road Haulage Association go forward to the HM Treasury in an attempt to avert this very delicate situation due on Saturday. A way forward is sought by all sides concerned.”

www.transaction-2007.com

Load of bollocks if you ask me. The last protest caught the government and the fuel supply industry by surprise. The ‘fuel shortages’ were caused almost entirely by Joe Public panicking and rushing to grab as much fuel as possible ‘just in case’; I’m told that there are measures in place to stop that happening again.
 

someone wrote:
“what other product is over 50% tax?

Anything else taxed to this level would simply be given up!
fags, booze etc

(saying that I dunno what % of duty is on them Anyone?)”

Prepare to be shocked. I’m not sure how much cigarettes cost at the moment but I’m guessing around £5.50 for 20? Based on that:

82p is VAT, £2.17 goes on duty at 10.865p per cigarette and then a further £1.21 goes on the 22% duty charged on the final retail price.

So £4.20 out of your £5.50 goes towards lowering my income tax bill. 

Alcohol duty isn’t as bad but it’s still £7.82 duty on a 1 litre bottle of 40% alcohol, plus the VAT on the retail price. So for a £12 (?) bottle that’s £7.82 duty and £1.79 VAT – £9.61 total.

We are hitting £106.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying £1.10 a ltr.   Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the ‘don’t buy petrol on a certain day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn’t continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of >an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take a ggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here’s the idea:

For the rest of this year DON’T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.

If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It’s really simple to do!!

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE

It’s easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e. boycott BP and Esso!

What a load of bollocks.

1) Firstly, Esso & BP aren’t the same company to start with. Esso is owned by Exxon Mobil Corp. listed on the NYSE while BP plc is listed on the LSE.

2) From your £1/litre, 50.35p goes to the government in excise duty and a further 14.89p is VAT. To sell at 69p/litre the oil companies would require the garage to have a cost price of less than 10p/litre. The open-market price of crude oil is currently around 24p/litre, add the cost of refining and distributing the fuel and a small amount of profit for the service station operators and there’s very little room for any price reductions.

3) Esso & BP service stations don’t necessarily sell fuel from Esso & BP refineries – it’s as likely to have been bought on the open market or by long term contract and shifted around the world in ships and shifted around the country in tankers and by underground pipes. The diesel in the BP truck you see delivering to the local service station is as likely to have started out in a Shell refinery as in a BP refinery.

4) There’s an overall shortage of diesel production in Europe (that’s why diesel prices have been higher than unleaded for the last few years) – any surplus would be quickly bought up on the open market. In the unlikely event that a boycott had any effect on the retail chain the same fuel would just end up in the same vehicles but sold through different garages. Esso and BP would continue to make their profits, as they do now, from extraction and refining.

The only way that fuel’s ever going to become much cheaper is if the Government (whichever party) cut their take of excise duty and VAT. If they did that they’d still have to raise the revenue from somewhere, so some other tax would have to go up.

I’m all for high fuel prices: they help keep the rabble off the roads and they discourage businesses from using their own transport for deliveries.

TNT established itself in the UK by being seen on the news every night for a year crossing the Wapping picket line in the 80s.