UK road pricing 'to cost £62 billion'

UK MOTORISTS look set to pay through the nose for the Government's latest road pricing wheeze, claimed to be a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It could cost more than £600 to quip each vehicle with the technology required to make the scheme work and motorists will have to pay for the privilege.

Despite growing public protest, Prime Minister Tony Blair said at the weekend that the Government is determined to press ahead with the scheme, which will replace fuel duty and vehicle licencing, charging motorists on the basis of the route taken and time of day. Heavily-used roads during the rush hour would be priced at more than £1 a mile, while quiet country roads would be exempt from the charges.

A Department of Transport feasibility study reported in The Daily Telegraph estimates that the plan could cost a staggering £62 billion to set up and more than £8 billion a year to administer.

So far, over one and a half million people have signed an online petition objecting to road pricing. The equipment needed in each vehicle ranges from a basic transmitter read by roadside equipment with an estimated cost of £15, increasing to a more sophisticated device costing up to £500 enabling cars to be tracked as they travel along the road network which would be divided into half-kilometre cells.

The study estimates that it would also cost around £100 to fit the devices and warns that foreign cars entering the country would also be required to sign up for a temporary account and have the necessary hardware installed.

However, the abysmal track record of large scale government computer systems in the UK does not inspire confidence. Paul Watters, head of roads policy at AA Public Affairs, told the Telegraph: "In terms of value for money you would have to have a phenomenal rate of return to invest £8 billion to run the scheme. Can you imagine the size of the call centre and billing centre that would be needed to run this?"

We can, Paul. We can. µ

L'INQ
Daily Telegraph