Government must urgently get the ball rolling on a plan to introduce road pricing or risk major increases in congestion and plummeting tax revenues as electric vehicle numbers rise, a think tank set up by a former Prime Minister has warned.
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The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change says in a new report that the current ability to operate an electric vehicle almost tax free appears to be positive for motorists but could spell a “disaster” for society at large.
Gridlock will rapidly get worse as reductions in the cost of driving for those with electric vehicles encourages more car travel, it says, while the erosion of fuel duty revenues would leave a fiscal hole requiring tax rises elsewhere.
Road pricing, the report argues, “offers a huge opportunity to rethink our relationship with our cars and the incentives we put around their use” in a way that tackles the “real social costs” of driving.
It adds that action is needed now to introduce a road user charging policy before millions of electric vehicles have been purchased on the assumption they will be cheap to drive. “Introducing a pricing scheme at that point will be politically impossible.”
However any road pricing policy must also be designed in a way that does not slow the transition from petrol and diesel to cleaner forms of vehicles, the report emphasises.
It says that a dynamic model where charges vary based on the time and location of road use would be most effective at addressing the costs of motoring to society, including congestion, emissions and accidents.
But it is acknowledged that this could mean significantly increasing the tax take from drivers, introducing political challenges and the likely perception of an ‘attack on motorists’.
Further challenges to address in developing a road pricing model for the UK include ensuring predictability of costs for drivers and protecting privacy. “A key principle of any road pricing system must be that, if it is strengthening incentives to reduce congestion, drivers need to have a way of responding to those incentives” such as through provision of alternative, sustainable forms of transport, it adds.
The think tank says Government should immediately take action to signal its intention to introduce a form of road pricing in the near future, and calls on it to set out proposals on how to do so in the next 12 months.
(Photograph: MagicBones - Shutterstock)
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