What future for local road-pricing schemes?

Last month, the majority of voters in all of Manchester's 10 boroughs voted against the £2.8bn Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) and the establishment of a congestion charge zone in the city.

The Association of Greater Manchester Authorities (AGMA) had hoped to introduce the scheme by 2012, with drivers being charged up to £5 a day to travel at peak times.

Although AGMA said lorries would have been exempt from the charge for the first year, hauliers feared that inclusion further down the line would have had devastating results.

Mike Lyons, group finance director at Trafford Park-based AK Worthington, says: "It would have had a massive, two-fold effect on us on an operational level and on staff having to travel into work. We urge the Government to accept the will of the people."

This is a view shared by the Road Haulage Association (RHA); chief executive Roger King says: "The people of Greater Manchester have spoken and we must accept their verdict."

In March, the West Midlands Metropolitan Authorities gave the thumbs down to a local road-pricing scheme. Council leaders did not make a bid for TIF money as they believed the benefits for the Black Country would have been negligible.

With the British mood moving against urban road-charging schemes, our Continental cousins continue to embrace them. In Stockholm, a congestion tax was put in place in August 2007 following a seven-month trial.

It affects just Swedish-registered vehicles driving into and out of the Stockholm inner-city zone on weekdays between 6.30am and 6.29pm.

Speaking at the Transport Times Annual Road Pricing Conference in November, John Dowson – a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers who helped to implement the Stockholm scheme – said traffic had fallen by 25% and the use of public transport had risen.

But while a city congestion charge can cut delivery times and vehicle emissions, there are other ways of reducing congestion – increasing road capacity, for example. Professor Stephen Glaister, director at motorist campaigning group RAC Foundation, believes the Government has neither invested enough in this area nor given hauliers enough of an incentive: "We would have a form of road pricing, but as part of the package you would have to reduce fuel duty."

But is there another option? A Department for Transport (DfT) consultation ending in March will determine whether Nottingham City Council should go ahead with a Workplace Parking Levy (WPL).

Under the WPL, employers (or their staff) would have to pay for their yearly parking spaces. The aim is to encourage the use of public transport and take 2.5 million cars off the road by 2015.

Starting in 2010, the levy on each affected parking space would be in the region of £185 per year. This would eventually rise to £364.

However hauliers would not have to pay to leave a truck parked in a depot.

Councillor Jane Urquhart says: "The WPL is more targeted, by only affecting the commuters going to the 500 biggest employers."

The Freight Transport Association (FTA) believes a WPL would have little impact on congestion and might leave local hauliers out of pocket.

Stephen Kelly, head of policy for the Midlands, says: "FTA members based in Nottingham object to it as they see it as another stealth tax – a tax which could result in putting Nottingham's business at a commercial disadvantage to other cities without WPL."

All road pricing schemes need to demonstrate a reduction in delivery times. With fuel tax high and money tight, the Government now more than ever needs to justify its reasons for forcing trucks to pay to use UK roads.