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.

This article about the proposed M4 toll road demonstrates my point perfectly. It reports ‘warnings’ from the RHA that “plans for an M4 toll relief road would cripple haulage businesses delivering into Wales and seriously damage the economy”.

RHA regional director Mike Farmer is reported as suggesting that a private company builds the road and then the Government repays it back over a period of time, based on traffic counts on the new road, or “shadow tolling” as it’s known.

While the PFI shadow toll suggestion is certainly workable, it’s hardly a fair solution to the problem. The A55 extension across Anglesey is funded by just such a scheme, the 20 mile stretch of dual carriageway is expected to have cost every Welsh resident over £130 by the time the road’s been paid for in 2026. This is for a road which provides no benefit whatsoever to the vast majority of the Welsh population and is mainly used by foreign hauliers who pay nothing at all towards the cost and don’t benefit the Welsh economy in any way.

Mr Farmer is obviously fully aware that there’s already a substantial toll for entering South Wales via the Severn Bridges; has that crippled haulage businesses delivering into Wales and seriously damaged the economy?

Has the M6 Toll crippled haulage businesses in the Midlands and seriously damaged the economy? It hasn’t because, as Mr Farmer points out: “hauliers have snubbed it due to time savings of less than 20 minutes being achieved, £11 for 17 minutes doesn’t stack up economically”. No doubt the hauliers would be happy enough to use it if it was paid for through “shadow tolling” as Mr Farmer suggests the proposed M4 relief road should be. So should the whole of England be contributing towards a road that saves a few truckers, many of them foreign, less than 40 minutes a day? 42,000 motorists per day do pay to use the M6 Toll, removing 42,000 vehicles from the M6 and helping to keep the delays for the truckers using the route down to (an apparently acceptable) 17 minutes.

Incidentally, I should point out to Mr Farmer that the M6 Toll is £7.66 plus VAT (£9 including VAT), not £11 as he claims, and is the same price for a Transit van as it is for an articulated lorry. I’m surprised that a regional director of the RHA who feels he’s qualified to discuss the relative benefits of a major road toll scheme, doesn’t seem to know how much his own members are being charged for the use of the only comparable scheme in the UK.

£7.66 seems a bit expensive to me for a Transit van, especially considering the relative amount of wear caused to the road by larger vehicles, but we still often use the M6 Toll when we’re carrying time-sensitive goods, the road appears to be widely used by many other same day couriers as well. Mr Farmer should be happy that his members are able to drive a fully loaded artic along the M6 Toll for the same price.

If the delays on the existing M4 aren’t bad enough to make motorists want to use a new toll road, then they can continue to put up with what are obviously very minor delays. If the delays are serious enough to warrant a lot of money being spent to improve the problem then why shouldn’t it be the people who benefit from the expenditure who pay for it? Why should a factory worker in Wrexham contribute towards making a Polish lorry driver’s day 20 minutes shorter when he delivers to Cardiff?

There are congested motorways throughout the UK and it’s clear that in most cases no new roads are planned to ease the congestion. As we’ve learnt from previous roadbuilding projects, new motorways soon fill up with motorists pushing the boundaries of their ‘drive to work’ area, causing extra congestion on feeder routes. Put simply, if you were to extend, for example, the M65 so that it went from Preston to York there would be people from both ends who would decide that it was a reasonable daily commute, the existing stretch of motorway would immediately become more congested than it is now and the local roads would all be full of cars heading for the motorway. The M6 Toll is one of the few major road projects that hasn’t caused this type of problem – precisely because people have to pay to use it. If it had been free it would already be suffering from congestion.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m broadly behind a congestion charge for Manchester, the mechanics of actually paying the charge are an issue for me and I can see a good case for making commercial vehicles exempt, but on the whole I’m in favour of anything that discourages commuting by car. This can only be a long-term benefit for same day couriers in the Manchester area.

According to this report in the Manchester Evening News, GMMG have come up with their own alternative proposal to the congestion charge and are suggesting that Manchester’s public transport improvements should be funded not by a congestion charge, but by a 2p in the pound increase in business rates and the selling off of Manchester Airport, which is currently owned by the 10 councils of Greater Manchester. They’re apparently also “calling for the removal of millions of tonnes of freight from the roads”.

As I’d not seen the leaflet which outlines these proposals I went over to the GMMG website to see the full details for myself. I couldn’t find any mention of this new proposal, but there were a few other points of interest on the site.

Firstly, this map. Now maybe I misheard or misunderstood the original congestion charge proposal, but I’m almost certain that the original ‘inner ring’ boundary was to be the Inner Ring Road (Mancunian Way, Trinity Way, Great Ancoats Street), when did it move to the Intermediate Ring Road and when was half of Trafford Park included in it?

On the BBC website I found an article Manchester congestion charge: myth and reality, apparently written by ‘Lewis Atter – Architect of the Manchester congestion charging plan’. In the article, apparently written on June 30th 2008, he states clearly “Manchester’s charging area will consist of two huge cordons, one just inside the M60 orbital route and the second roughly around the inner ring road.” – this is exactly what I’d remembered from the initial proposal.

I then discovered this Manchester C-charge area unveiled, apparently written 10 days earlier it clearly shows the boundaries of the ‘inner ring’ roughly following the route of the Intermediate Ring Road.

Could it really be possible that Lewis Atter, the head of KPMG’s global transport advisory group, the ‘architect of the Manchester congestion charging plan’ and presumably (one would hope) somewhat of an expert in Manchester’s transport system, doesn’t know the difference between the Inner Ring Road and the Intermediate Ring Road? A cynic might believe that this was a delibarate attempt to mislead the public.

There are actually several maps on the BBC website outlining the proposed boundaries of the ‘inner ring’, the best being this one, this seems to be a map from an official source, outlining the proposed options, none of which could be said to be “roughly around the inner ring road” and just as importantly none of which includes the large areas of Trafford Park, Salford and Stretford included on the map on the GMMG website.

Back on the GMMG website I was intrigued to note that their members include the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), The Road Haulage Association (RHA) and a few companies like AK Worthington and TDG who are involved in road transport.

Do the FSB really support a 2p in the pound increase in business rates? Which businesses would be liable for this; businesses within the M60, businesses throughout Greater Manchester, businesses throughout the North West? How will this help Manchester’s economy and encourage companies to move to Manchester, rather than Liverpool, for example?

And are the RHA really supporting a plan that would lead to “the removal of millions of tonnes of freight from the roads”? Personally I find it impossible to believe that an organisation that exists to represent the interests of the road haulage industry would support a plan that would damage the industry that they’re meant to represent.

It seems to me that the RHA would be better supporting the proposals of the rival pressure group United City. While they’re clearly in favour of a congestion charge, they’re suggesting that its impact on businesses be lessened by a cap of only one charge for business vehicles passing through a charging ring more than once during the charging periods. This will help businesses which, for example, have to make peak-time deliveries across the M60 and inner charging rings.

Personally I’d prefer a full exemption for commercial vehicles but the United City proposal seems a good compromise.

I note that one of the main movers behind the GMMG campaign appears to be either Peel Holdings or the Peel Group – the owners of the Manchester Ship Canal, the Trafford Centre, Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, Liverpool John Lennon Airport and the City of Manchester Airport (Barton Aerodrome).

In September 2006 Peel announced a £4.5 billion waterside redevelopment scheme for the Wirral waterfront, followed by an announcement in March 2007 of a £5.5 billion regeneration of the Liverpool waterfront. Their website contains no announcements of significant future developments within Greater Manchester, the area that the GMMG group seem to wish to burden with extra business rates.

GMMG’s proposals include the sale of Manchester Airport plc, owners of Manchester, East Midlands, Bournemouth and Humberside airports. Is it really just a coincidence that Peel already own four airports and a group that they’re a member of is proposing putting another four on the market?

Now let’s go back to GMMG’s plan for “the removal of millions of tonnes of freight from the roads”, while I’m all in favour of that I wonder what alternative means of transport into Manchester the Group have in mind. Could it possibly be the transport of goods from the (Peel owned) Mersey docks into Manchester along the (Peel owned) Manchester Ship Canal? Like this maybe?

Maybe unsurprisingly, a WHOIS search for the domain gmmgroup.co.uk reveals that the GMMG website is actually owned by Peel Holdings Ltd.

One final thought, if the Peel Group are so dead set against charging for road use maybe they could set an example by stopping charging the ridiculous 12p toll for crossing a dried up river bed at Warburton Bridge.

The proposed Manchester Congestion Charge is the perfect example of a system which takes no account whatsoever of the sheer nuisance factor of these charges for people who travel around the country regularly.

Regular visitors to the congestion zone will have the benefit of a pre-pay ‘tag’ system linked to an account which is automatically debited as they enter and leave the zone.

If you’re not a regular visitor, say a courier based in another part of the country, you’ll apparently be able to pay via a call centre or the internet, although this may be subject to a surcharge.

The problem with this is the sheer complexity of the proposed charging system in Manchester. With the London Congestion Charge it’s a simple enough matter for a courier to work out, at the end of the day sometimes, whether they strayed into the Zone and whether they’ve got a Congestion Charge to pay, yet drivers still forget that they’ve been into the Zone and forget to pay.

The Manchester system will consist of 2 rings, based on the M60 and the Inner Ring Road. In the morning there’s a charge of £2 to drive into the outer ring and a charge of £1 to drive into the inner ring. In the evenings there’s a charge of £1 to driver out of the inner ring and £1 to drive out of the outer ring. Unlike the London Congestion Charge this isn’t a simple one off charge for entering the Zone – drive into the inner ring to make a delivery at 0800, drive just outside the ring to make a delivery at 0830 and drive back in to make a delivery at 0900 and you pay the charge twice. Follow your satnav’s directions in and out of the ring a few times and you could be due to pay two or three charges. Being from out of town, not knowing the roads and being already a bit confused by the tramlines etc you could quite easily be totally unaware of how many times you’ve crossed the rings.

Is it really too much to ask that these different organisations that operate all these separate charging and toll schemes get their heads together and establish a single automated tag system covering all the major toll roads, bridges and congestion zones? Should it really be up to drivers to develop an encyclopaedic knowledge of the intricacies of each city’s charging system and risk penalty charges for straying into a congestion zone that they didn’t even know existed, in a town they’ve never been to, 5 seconds before the zone would have ceased to operate for the day.

SPECS speed cameras work by measuring the average speed of a vehicle over a stretch of road, avoiding the phenomenon known as ‘camera surfing’ where speeding motorists slow down for conventional speed cameras and immediately speed up again once they’re passed the camera.

The BBC reports Peter Weir, the Northern Ireland Assembly member for North Down, as saying: “It will lead to suspicions that the cameras have not been operating properly or that drivers are finding a way of evading detection. There is a key challenge to the police on this issue, and they must come forward with immediate confirmation that the cameras have been fully and properly operating.”

There is another possible reason for the low level of detection that Peter Weir seems not to have considered. Maybe the local motorists have taken notice of the 32 bright yellow cameras along a short stretch of road and have actually cut their speed, which was surely the intention of installing the cameras to start with. If the cameras weren’t installed as a deterrent, and one which is apparently working, then why were they installed?

A spokesman for the Police is quoted as saying: “The success of the scheme is measured solely in the reduction of speed and casualties.”

The only other SPECS speed camera site in Northern Ireland is on the A1 outside Newry, where just 77 speeding motorists have been caught in the 2 years of operation. As the main route between Belfast and Dublin it is perhaps only to be expected that the A1 would have a higher level of non-compliance than the A2.

The first SPECS cameras in the UK were introduced in Nottingham in 2000 and immediately proved to be highly effective in lowering average vehicle speeds – so much so that they produced a much lower revenue for the local council than had been anticipated.

A major installation of SPECS cameras is estimated to cost around £2 million.

Motorbikes FREE
Car £1.00
Goods Vehicles with no more than 2 axles £1.80 (£1.00 2200-0600)
Vehicles with more than 2 axles £2.90 (£1.00 2200-0600)
Vehicles towing trailers charged at twice their standard toll

Humber Bridge Tolls (charged both ways)

Motorbikes £1.20
Cars and Goods Vehicles up to 3500kg £2.70
Cars and Goods Vehicles up to 3500kg towing a trailer £4.90
Goods vehicles over 3500kg but under 7500kg £4.90

Mersey Tunnels Tolls – Queensway and Kingsway (charged both ways)

Solo Motorbikes FREE
Cars and Goods Vehicles up to 3500kg £1.40
Cars and Goods Vehicles up to 3500kg, towing a trailer £2.80
Goods vehicles over 3500kg, with 2 axles £2.80
Goods vehicles over 3500kg, with 3 axles £4.20
Goods vehicles over 3500kg, with 4 or more axles £5.60

M6 Toll (charged both ways)

Motorbikes £2.50 (£1.50 2300-0600)
Cars and Small Vans (less than 1.3m high above first axle) £4.50 (£3.50 2300-0600)
Cars and Small Vans (less than 1.3m high above first axle), towing a trailer £8.00 (£7.00 2300-0600)
All Vehicles over 1.3m high above the first axle £9.00 (£8.00 2300-0600)

Severn Bridge Tolls (charged westbound – into Wales only)

Motorbikes FREE
Cars £5.30
Goods Vehicles up to 3500kg  £10.60
Goods vehicles over 3500kg £15.90
No extra charge for trailers

Tamar Bridge Tolls (charged Eastbound only)

Motorbikes FREE
Cars and Goods Vehicles up to 3500kg, with 2 axles £1.00
Goods Vehicles over 3500kg, with 2 axles £2.50
Goods vehicles over 7500kg, with 3 axles £4.00
Goods vehicles over 7500kg, with 4 or more axles £5.50
Vehicles towing trailers charged at twice their standard toll

Tyne Tunnel Tolls (charged both ways)

Motorbikes 20p
Cars and Goods Vehicles up to 3500kg £1.20
Goods vehicles over 3500kg £1.50
No charge for trailers

London Congestion Charge

£8 per day to enter, or drive within, the Congestion Zone at any time between 0700 and 1800, Monday to Friday. Charged once per day only, no matter how many times you enter the zone. See http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/roadusers/congestioncharge/whereandwhen/

Erskine Bridge, Forth Bridge, Skye Bridge & Tay Bridge are now toll free.

There are numerous, cheaper, toll bridges and roads scattered around the country on minor roads. See http://www.theaa.com/allaboutcars/overseas/european_tolls_select.jsp for their location and the toll costs for a car.

 Compiled 17th July 2008. No responsibility taken for any errors.

If it’s the congestion charge then I don’t think there’s any need to worry about it – as far as I can see it will only apply to cars and to double cab pick-ups. The only change for vans is that there’ll be a £2 reduction for vehicles which meet Euro 5 standards.
 

Quote:
“Meanwhile, the Green Party has urged the Mayor to extend it to transitdriving “white van man” in 2010.”

Yehbut we already know that it’s going to be extended to transits in 2010 so why are they bothering to do any urging.

It was announced months ago that the LEZ would apply to diesel vans over 1205kg unladen with effect from October 2010. It doesn’t apply to vans that meet Euro 3 standards though – including all vans registered after 01/01/2002 and many registered before that.

How many couriers drive 9 year old vans?

Nobody is actually going to be paying the charge, except as a one off, because the alternatives make more financial sense.

Nobody’s going to pay £50k per year to enter the zone every day, rather than buy a newer vehicle and no customer is going to accept a £200 surcharge on a London delivery just because a transport company is running outdated vehicles.
 

“Any non-compliant vehicle entering the zone after 4 February 2008 will, rather than get a Penalty Charge Notice, instead receive a warning letter giving the vehicle keeper 28 days to make the vehicle compliant. After that period any subsequent infringement will result in a Penalty Charge Notice being issued.”
 

That’s if it’s a PCN rather than a FPN, I’m not sure of the situation nowadays with FPNs.

The rules which the councils set out for the issuing of tickets aren’t the same as the rules which determine whether the ticket is valid or not.
 

PCNs, except where enforcement by CCTV is in operation, must be handed to the driver or fixed to the vehicle at the time of the offence to be valid. In the case of enforcement by CCTV a PCN, along with the opportunity to pay the reduced penalty, is issued by post.

FPNs are issued by Police or Traffic Wardens and are valid whether or not they’re fixed to the vehicle or handed to the driver.