The road pricing 'big debate'

The Government wants to reduce congestion, saving millions of hours in traffic jams, worth billions of pounds to the economy. Road pricing will achieve this, they say, by changing people’s travel habits: driving on congested roads at peak times will cost more, so people are likely to change to less pressured times, less travelled routes, public transport, walking and cycling – or perhaps even choose destinations closer to home or work.

At the 28 May meeting about NEC/Birmingham Post big debate on road pricing views on the Government’s road pricing ideas were polarised on depressingly familiar lines:

- the e-petitioner of Downing Street alleged that road pricing is simply a stealth tax;
- Friends of the Earth saw getting us out of cars as just one step towards a greener and healthier lifestyle;
- The business community wanted reduced congestion, but want massive investment in transport infrastructure as well.

Perhaps it was not so surprising that the councillors did not turn up – they could have predicted these positions from the comfort of their own homes.

It is a pity that there is not more meeting of minds, because the underlying problem is a serious one for us all. Big cities like Birmingham grew up with the motor car, but the quality of cities as places to live and do business are now being undermined by the way it clogs their arteries and dominates their environment. People and businesses try to dodge the problem by moving further out, but this erodes the dense pattern of linkages that make urban life exciting and productive. Side effects include leads to ghettoes of deprivation (as the richest move furthest and those with least choice are left behind), and produces of course even more traffic and more congestion. There is a vicious circle, with congestion both a symptom and a cause of urban decline – but how do we break into this circle? Is road pricing the right way?

The Lunar Society organised a debate on this topic last November, to see if we could contribute helpfully to the ideas that the City Region local authorities are putting to government in their bid for Transport Innovation Fund money (‘Gridlock or Growth’). The Society does not take positions, but we did argue the need for a broader approach to road pricing than the protagonists (on either side) have so far taken. We think, is that DfT (and most others) take too narrow a view of both the purposes and the effects of road pricing.
Both The DfT and business interests tend to take a technocratic view, seeing the issues mainly in terms of the business benefits of congestion-saving (Sir Rod Eddington's comment ‘It’s a no-brainer’ encapsulates this nicely).

Unfortunately for this view, what the Lunar Society paper shows that the predicted direct effects on congestion are pretty feeble. Even after spending £6bn on infrastructure as well as introducing road pricing, average delays per car trip (at present around 5 mins) would be reduced by only 30 seconds by 2021 compared with ‘business as usual’ – and by only 5 seconds per trip compared with now. If the e-petition is any thing to go by, this is unlikely to prove a clincher if it is the only argument put forward!

But what the Lunar Society debate concluded is that meeting our transport needs should be seen in the context of a vision for the kinds of towns, cities and countryside we want to live in. There is an argument for a much broader approach, using pricing alongside fuel taxes, urban regeneration and public transport investment to influence the choices of location made by people and businesses. It's these choices that drive increasing dispersion and car-dependency, and which must be addressed if we are to do anything serious about CO2, oil-dependency, quality of life and (incidentally) congestion.

There is much more scope to influence these choices than is generally realised: around 20% of people change jobs annually, 10% of households move each year, and businesses are continually changing both their premises and their patterns of service. All of these changes affect our use of transport, and Jjoined-up policy that targeted these locational such choices could have a very powerful effect on travel demand. Unfortunately an integrated approach, but is inhibited by the Whitehall tunnel vision that treats transport as a separate issue, and congestion as the only target.

Regeneration and road pricing both have a part to play in breaking into the vicious circle of urban decline and growing car-dependency. Well designed actions, working together, could reduce both the need and the propensity to travel, as well as changing the balance in favour of alternative means of travel to the car. Actions will need to be broadly based and well-integrated, and this means that local action is more likely to be effective than central diktat. Apart from its influence on locational choices, the most significant point about road pricing may be that it would provide the local resources needed if local agencies are to take charge – as they will need to.

Action on a broader front will not only meet a wider range of policy objectives than the present exclusive focus on congestion, but also offers (by addressing the underlying cause of travel growth) a better prospect of success on the narrow issue of congestion as well. Planning, locational decision-making and the pricing and provision of transport need to work together. This will make for better places as well as better transport.

There is an even bigger reason why we need to get our act together on this broader front: while big English cities like Birmingham lead the economies of their regions, they are lagging behind their continental counterparts, so the whole both regional regional and national economies suffer. For 30 years continental countries have invested heavily in modern public transport that supports compact, livable cities – and are reaping the benefits. Professor Michael Parkinson from John Moores University, Liverpool reported to the Government on some of these issues last year ('The State of the Cities'), and has recently advised Birmingham City Council on the implications for the city centre. He will be speaking at a Lunar Society event in Birmingham on 2 October. We hope that this will help to provide the broader approach to road pricing that we believe is necessary