Road pricing is an issue that has toured around the transport world for a very long time — though, unlike some topics, its prominence has veered on and off the political map.
Potentially a powerful tool that can help achieve many goals, it is currently regaining traction in the media and among think tanks as an idea whose time has perhaps finally come.
This is a good thing in my view, and we in the industry and the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT) should encourage what is a solution for several problems, not least local bus networks grinding to a halt.
Why? Well, as many have been pointing out, the new Chancellor has a massive financial headache and her government a large majority. So, if ever something that’s proved politically toxic in the past could be contemplated, it is surely now.
Alongside its current financial hole, the government will also see major sources of revenue decline significantly as ICE vehicles are phased out (the deadline for which Labour has promised to bring forward).
Fuel duty and vehicle excise duty receipts are both set to fall — unless, of course, these taxes are changed or replaced.
Road pricing, or “pay-as-you-drive” as the Campaign for Better Transport sensibly suggests we should rename it, is not just a potential revenue-raiser.
It is a tool that can help realise many goals — air quality, carbon reduction and congestion relief chief among them.
Moreover, today’s technology means it could be targeted with different rates (including dynamic ones) charged depending on precise location, time of day or week, vehicle and emission type, total pollution generated, distance travelled, traffic volume, etc.
If the new government wants to make it progressive then different rates could apply to particular models, or some other method such as quotas could surely be devised.
Experience from other parts of the world has shown the key to any acceptance of road pricing is for it to be seen as fair, likely to achieve worthwhile goals, and sufficient to fund alternatives too.
In 2022, the Transport Select Committee concluded it was time for an honest conversation about motoring taxes.
Road pricing … is a tool that can help realise many goals – Paul Lynch
The Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested a cross-party commission where local leaders and other citizens look at the issue, and ensure fairness, effectiveness and the realisation of desired social and environmental benefits.
London led with an early congestion charge in 2003 using a methodology that inevitably feels blunt and old-fashioned now.
I attended a talk recently with Seb Dance, the Deputy Mayor for Transport, and suggested to him that road pricing was necessary and inevitable in the capital given the scale of the problems we face — even though, when politically cornered during his re-election campaign, Mayor Sadiq Khan specifically ruled it out.
While unequivocal it will not happen during the current mayoral term, Mr Dance also sought to justify this position mainly by saying it wasn’t right to penalise the choices of motorists.
This struck me as a weak argument given that drivers do not pay the true cost of their choices now and, even though some motorists are among the least well-off, the technology exists to target the better-off in any road pricing scheme.
I also wondered “well, what about the unfairness of effectively penalising those who choose to use the bus, or ignoring the needs of those who have no other option?”
So, while London’s Mayor has bravely spent political capital defending the ULEZ and has been forced to rule out something that could be much more impactful, it is now our national government that has large incentives to drive this matter forward.
For the bus industry, pay-as-you-drive could help significantly with speed and punctuality, the customers’ number one priority.
It could help kick-start the virtuous circle of improved ridership with all the advantages that delivers.
Promisingly, it also makes sense for a new government with net-zero targets to meet, economic and societal goals to achieve, and equitable revenue-raising ideas to find.
