A combination of continuing pressures on the UK economy, the need for increased future investment in the transport infrastructure and a desire to encourage a reduction in vehicle emissions by using electric and other alternatively powered vehicles are likely to result in current road taxes becoming inadequate.

This will lead to a need to introduce a national scheme of road pricing, with commercial vehicle operators, car drivers, bus and coach operators and other road users expected to pay on a mile by mile basis in the future, according to The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK (CILT).

Road pricing is one of the key conclusions contained in a new report from CILT titled Vision 2035. The report has been produced on behalf of the Institute by CILT’s Public Policies Committee under the guidance of project leader Michael Woods.

The report endeavours to forecast the evolution of the UK transport scene over the next quarter of a century, to understand the impacts that wider social progress will have on the roles and demands regarding both freight and passenger transport, and to identify the key policy instruments and investments that will be required in order for transport facilities and operations to serve society as effectively as possible.

The principle that ‘the user pays’ is becoming enshrined in Government thinking, as exampled in the recent past in respect of university charges and, directly in the transport sector, rail fare increases falling on rail users themselves, rather than being subsidised from the general exchequer.

The huge financial burdens on the UK economy limit its ability to fund new infrastructure over the next decade, and behaviour change which encourages the use of more sustainable modes could help fill the gap.

Environmentally, the Government’s policy to reduce transport emissions depends heavily on the introduction of more efficient petrol car engines, followed by decarbonisation of electricity supply and the universal adoption of electric vehicles.

As this happens, road taxes will become inadequate as a means of charging for road use and any incentives that Government provides to encourage take up of electric vehicles would be most effective if combined with road pricing.

Vision 2035 recognises that there is no current public consensus in favour of road charging, locally and nationally, which raises important questions regarding equality of opportunity and the role of the transport sector as an important ‘enabler’ in the process of providing access to jobs, education and healthcare. And higher charges for using transport at the point of consumption, rather than through tax-payer subsidies, could be seen as socially divisive.

Vision 2035 says that it is therefore important that road charging should incorporate measures to help poorer people dependent on the use of the car, including offsetting reductions in VED and fuel duty, and measures to encourage flexible working hours to avoid peak charges.

Overall, Vision 2035 says that more use should be made of pricing mechanisms to achieve transport policy objectives. In particular road-user charging should be used to expose the external as well as internal costs of vehicle use.