News

The news that road tolling trials will take place in nine areas of the country will worry many hauliers. Seeking to reduce congestion is a worthy aim. However it should not be at the cost of economic growth or by adding to the costs of an already overburdened industry. There are two main problems. The first is that the nine trials will all be run in different ways. It could be a nightmare working out which truck can go into which city at what time and also how operators keep track of the charges  to ensure that they comply.

This will be on top of complying with the soon to be enlarged London congestion charge zone and the new Low Emission Zone in London. What the industry needs is a single set of rules covering trucks that applies across the country and ideally operators being sent one bill for all their vehicles nationwide. The cost of administration for a national or regional fleet could be high. A myriad of different rules will also make it difficult to plan and schedule trips.

The second problem is to identify what a charging scheme is actually seeking to achieve. It will certainly make motoring more expensive (even if only to pay for the costs systems) but will it reduce congestion? In London the traffic levels seem to be increasing. The risk is that we pay more to sit in the same old traffic jams.