Gap between taxes and spending
Over the past decades, public spending on transport has been significantly below public revenue received through transport taxes. Currently, the gap between road taxes and transport spending is around £11bn per year. The most visible element of transport taxation is fuel duty. The UK has among the highest tax rates on petrol and diesel in Europe. With some justification, therefore, road users could argue that most of the existing roads were built a very long time ago and should have been paid for out of their taxes several times already. Charging for these roads would be asking the drivers to pay for them a second – or maybe even a third – time. To make matters worse, if the receipts from road pricing went straight to the Treasury, it would be seen as just another tax and as such would be resented, and quite understandably so. It is this kind of thinking that explains why campaigners found it so easy to mobilise more than 1.8m people to sign a petition against road pricing on the number 10 website.

But transferring all receipts from road pricing is in fact not the only option, and the alternatives actually promise a much greater public acceptance of charging schemes. In a recent opinion poll, only 7% supported road pricing if the money went to the Treasury, but support rose to 55% if it was used to improve public transport. It is very much a question of what kind of deal the population is being offered. The fact is that UK motorists have long been paying tolls to drive on bridges, in tunnels and along the M6 toll road. The difference between these and other roads lies in people’s perceptions; certain bridges and tunnels are sufficiently unique forms of road; and the M6 toll has a free alternative, so people will tolerate being charged. Simply adding general road-user fees to the existing tax burden will not do.

So, we need to improve our transport system; the positive economic effects of road-user charging are beyond dispute; and the public would support road pricing schemes if the money was used to deliver better infrastructure. The obvious policy recommendation is to solve our transport crisis by using the revenue generated from charging road users. Such a proposal is likely to gain wide public support.

Yet, there is one problem with this idea. Planning and delivering transport infrastructure upgrades can be an extremely lengthy process. If one were to start charging road users now in order to finance improvements in public transport, railway connections or motorways that would materialise only 20 years later, this would clearly jeopardise public support. People could still think they were being charged for something that offered them nothing in return. The prospect of disappearing traffic jams in the very distant future is not very attractive to people who are asked to pay for the privilege of being stuck in a traffic jam today.

Actually, it should be looked at the other way around: only when improvements to the transport infrastructure have been made, will the charging begin. This would make it far easier to explain to road users why they are being charged and what the benefits are to them and the wider public. The link need not be totally direct. A better public transport system, for example, would also reduce road congestion by turning car drivers into bus users.