Pay-As-You-Go Road-Pricing: For or Against?

The Transport Secretary is quoted as saying that the proposed road-pricing scheme would be scrapped unless it attracted public support, but added that doing nothing was not an option. He has accused the anti-road charging pettion of spreading 'myths' about the plans. The Daily Mail explained how so many signatures were collected: "A series of round robin e-mails - mutating as they were sent - led to thousands more signatures." The emails originated from the Association of British Drivers, which makes the following claim: "...increasingly vicious, and increasingly silly, anti-car policies at national level are 'justified' by futile attempts to avert non-existent man-made global warming."

Tony Blair is now replying to all 1.8m anti road-pricing campaigners. We submitted their e-petition to the incredible 'EnBW Spamrecycler'.

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Even highly-respected, pro-environmental motoring groups can foresee potential flaws in the scheme, calling it "the millennium-dome of transport."

Petition against road-pricing: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/
Deadline: 20.02.07.

Petition in support of road-pricing: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/proroad-pricing/
Deadline: 17.01.08.

Economists have long advocated Road Pricing. According to the Department For Transport's feasability study: "A carefully structured road pricing scheme could potentially make a valuable contribution to promoting social inclusion and accessibility by:

• Freeing up road space to improve bus journey time and reliability.
• Minimising the impact of traffic and new infrastructure provision through better use of the existing network.
• Reducing the relatively high cost of motoring in less congested areas e.g. some rural areas.
• Using any revenue raised to provide demand-responsive transport systems and improve local amenities."

Summary of the report ¦ More case studies ¦ Road-Pricing in the Netherlands