Frequently asked questions

Road pricing is a way of tackling congestion. Congestion harms the economy and causes delay and frustration for motorists. It is also set to rise significantly over the next decade. Despite over £140 billion of planned central government transport spending over the 10 years up to 2015, on current trends congestion could get 25% worse.

Road pricing involves changing the way we pay for road use, to better reflect usage. It is not about stopping people travelling - rather addressing the concentration of vehicles on particular roads at specific times of day.

Research suggests that well designed road pricing schemes, alongside improved public transport, can lead to significant reductions in congestion. Through only a very small shift in travel patterns, significant reductions in congestion can be achieved. Shifts in travel patterns can be achieved in a number of ways, for example travelling at a different time of day and using public transport. Road pricing is not about stopping people from travelling.

When are you going to introduce road pricing?

No decisions have been made. In the first instance, the Government is working with interested local authorities to bring forward local pricing schemes as local solutions to local problems. We expect any local authority interested in developing a scheme to do so as part of a package of measures, which could include significant investment in complementary transport measures.

We envisage that, subject to suitable proposals coming forward from local authorities, a local road pricing scheme could be established within four to five years. It is only on the evidence we get from established schemes that any decision on national road pricing would be made. The Government is not rushing into this - we have always said we would need to see how it would work in practice first. That is why we are taking forward local schemes in the coming years.

What are you doing about congestion in the meantime?

We are already investing more in the road network and public transport, including new road capacity where that is justified. We are also improving the way roads are managed, helping traffic to flow better. But that won't be enough in the long term which is why we are exploring how national road pricing might work.

Find out more about what the Government is doing to tackle congestion

Why can't you build more roads to reduce congestion?

While there is a case for some new capacity on roads like the M25 and the M1, and that is being provided, we cannot build our way out of congestion. It would be unaffordable and environmentally unacceptable.

Why not make more use of rail and inland waterways for transporting freight?

The Government is committed to reducing the impact of moving freight around the country. We have a Sustainable Distribution Fund, which works in two ways: first, we provide Mode Shift grants to assist goods to be transported by rail or water rather than road. Second, we fund efficiency schemes that, for example, can help the same amount of goods to be transported by fewer vehicles.

The Mode Shift Freight grants issued in the 2006-07 grant year totalled over £27 million for both rail and water freight grants and secured the removal of over 800,000 lorry journeys from the UK road network. We expect the schemes will remove a similar number of lorry journeys from the roads in 2007-08.

In 2005-06, freight moved by rail increased by 6.8% with 22.11 billion net tonne kilometres moved compared with 20.7 billion net tonne kilometres in the previous year. Freight moved by rail has increased by 31% since 1997.

Why can't businesses work more flexibly to reduce peak hour travel?

The Government is encouraging more flexible working patterns among its own employees where practicable, including part-time working, compressed hours and working from home. DfT is supporting local initiatives to promote sustainable travel, and has published guidance to local authorities ("Making Smarter Choices Work" - link) to assist them in implementing measures such as workplace, school and personalised travel planning.

To help ensure workplace and school travel planning makes an effective contribution to tackling congestion and wider environmental issues across the wider community, DfT has:

Researched and disseminated best practice guidance.
Encouraged uptake of workplace travel planning in local transport plans.
Required the submission of travel plans with planning. applications to help make travel to and from new developments more sustainable.
Launched the National Business Travel Network in February 2007 to enable businesses to share their experiences of travel planning with a view to promoting wider take-up, particularly on a voluntary basis.

Why can't schools stagger their opening times?

Existing education legislation allows school governors to decide what each school's opening hours will be to give them the flexibility to respond to the needs of parents, pupils and the local community. DfT, together with DfES, has supported local authorities and schools with more than £100m funding, between April 2004 and March 2008, to help all schools develop and implement travel plans by 2010. As one of the actions to help schools put in place the measures identified in their travel plans, "Travelling to school: an action plan" [insert link] suggests that local authorities investigate whether they can broker staggered school opening times, with groups of schools, to provide an improved service with fewer vehicles, which can cater for the extended school day and spread the school travel peak into less congested travel times.

What are you doing to encourage car-sharing?

Both central and local government are working to promote car-sharing.

Working in partnership with local highway authorities, the Highways Agency has engaged with groups of large traffic-generating employers to persuade them to implement travel planning initiatives. Such measures are an important part of the workplace travel planning approach outlined above.

These consist of a number of measures, including car-sharing, which is aimed primarily at reducing single occupancy car based commuter trips.

Research has shown that workplace travel plans typically reduce commuter car driving by between 10% and 30% though the best ones achieve considerably more than that.

Some local authorities have also allowed vehicles with more than one occupant to use priority lanes, and the Government is currently exploring how car-share lanes on the motorways could help improve journey times for motorists.

How about a national website giving information about possible delays and alternative routes?

< a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20070807132058/http://www.transportdirect.info">Transport Direct, on the DfT's website, provides a free route-planning service, with multi-modal journey options and live travel news, and Traffic England is a new service from the Highways Agency that brings to your desktop real-time traffic information from the National Traffic Control Centre.

This real-time traffic service is also available as a downloadable desktop application and as traffic radio news service delivered live to your compatible mobile phone or PDA.

For further information on how to better plan your journey we have published a guide to using Highways Agency real-time traffic information services. 'Think Ahead, Move Ahead' provides information on how to access up-to-date traffic information so that you can find out about traffic conditions before you set off, while you are travelling, or even at a motorway service station by using one of our new Information Points.

There are also several commercial products available that offer real-time route planning and which take account of traffic conditions.

These services, delivered to you when and where you need them, allow you to make informed decisions about your travel plans.

Will everyone have to pay £1.34 for every mile they drive?

No. This figure came from a feasibility study carried out for the Government in 2004. The study illustrated several theoretical road pricing schemes, of which some had £1.34 per mile as their highest rate. The lowest rate in these illustrations was 2p per mile. Very few people would pay the highest rate.

If it is decided in the years ahead that a national road pricing scheme might be established then we would clearly have to review the way fuel and cars are taxed. But it is impossible to predict exactly what the tax regime is going to be so many years in advance.

What technology will be used?

No decision has been made.

We are inviting companies to bid to be part of a demonstrations project to test how technologies might work reliably and accurately, whilst safeguarding people's privacy. More information

Will I have to pay for a 'black box' in my car?

No decisions have been taken on what sort of technology would be needed for a national system of road pricing. Some schemes such as Dartford issue simple 'tags' for free whereas other schemes elsewhere in the world require a deposit from the driver which is then deducted from subsequent charges. We will be running demonstration projects to inform our thinking on this.

Would I get a speeding ticket with my bill if I break the speed limit?

The purpose of a road pricing scheme would be to tackle congestion. Of course, we want people to use the roads responsibly, but we would not be designing systems with the purpose of monitoring speeds and sending out tickets.

Isn't this all about raising money?

Road pricing is about tackling congestion.

If it is decided in the years ahead that a national road pricing scheme might be established then we would clearly have to review the way fuel and cars are taxed.

But it is impossible to predict exactly what the tax regime is going to be so many years in advance.

The Government has always said that we would work with authorities interested in taking forward local pricing schemes to ensure there was a fair deal for motorists.

What about people on lower incomes who can't afford to pay?

We need to ensure schemes are well designed so they don't impact adversely on people, and we are putting a lot of work into this. But if we do nothing about congestion the damage to the economy will affect jobs, which affects everyone. This is not a simple problem.

Will road pricing be about spying on people?

No. Road pricing is about tackling congestion. We are not interested in where people buy their groceries.

Safeguarding privacy will be a central consideration in any scheme design, and we are exploring how we could do this via a series of systems and technology demonstrations

Are you going to improve buses to give people more choice?

Government has always said that improving public transport will be a key part of any road pricing scheme. We are reversing decades of underinvestment, putting over £2.5 billion annually into the bus network and spending on average £88 million each week on the railways. We are also proposing new measures, in our draft Local Transport Bill [link to Draft Local Transport Bill], to secure improvements to the quality of local bus services, ensuring people can get where they need to go reliably and comfortably.

Will road pricing be designed to help the environment?

The primary aim of road pricing is to tackle congestion but a road pricing scheme could have environmental benefits, such as a positive impact on air quality. But road pricing is just one policy and not a panacea. We need to consider other measures to tackle climate change, such as how we can encourage the use of more efficient cars and cleaner fuel.

What about the rest of the world?

A number of other countries have road pricing arrangements in major cities and motorways. The Commission for Integrated Transport has carried out a comprehensive review of the existing and planned road pricing schemes across the world