The government should pilot pay-as-you-go road charging
technology to reduce traffic congestion, an independent review
commissioned by the Treasury and the Department for Transport has
urged.
The review by former British Airways chief executive Rod
Eddington found that given the scale of road congestion, “there is
no attractive alternative to road pricing”. Without a widespread
scheme by 2015, the UK would require “very significantly more
transport infrastructure”, it said.
The review report warned, “Road pricing on this scale is new and
at this stage has unknown implementation costs. There are very
significant risks and uncertainties involved in delivering a
pricing policy, particularly around the technology needed for its
delivery: potential technologies exist but have never been used at
a national level.”
It called for pilot schemes to test different pricing structures
and technologies. These should also look at “how to balance the
benefits of early inter-operability of technology, with the
benefits of testing different technologies” and be independently
evaluated, the report said.
The Eddington review also points to the potential of new
technologies to help manage transport supply and demand, and make
better use of available capacity.
In October, the government announced a £12m project to develop
"intelligent transport systems", looking at how new IT – including
distributed networks of sensors, data mining, agent-based software,
modelling technology and new communications tools – could be used
to improve the transport system
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