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FTA charter provides Forum with a recipe for fair charges
Page 14
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11 IL FREIGHT Transport Association this week presented the government with a charter outlining the principles which it believes any new road charges for trucks should be based on.
The government plans to introduce a policy of distance charging for commercial vehicles from 2006. The charter, put together last week after a meeting of the ETA's regional freight council chairmen, lists what the association believes are the essential ingredients for any new road charging system to work fairly.
Top of the list is a guarantee that there should be no overall increase in tax, and that foreign hauliers must be made to pay the same as UK vehicles.
Simon Chapman, the PTA's chief economist, also highlighted the importance of keeping the associated in-cab technology simple and compatible with the rest of Europe.
The association also wants the charges to be clear, so that operators can make informed choices about what vehicles to use and when to use them.
The ETA is also demanding discounts on night travel, on motorways and in low-emission vehicles — and it wants a guarantee that there will be no 'premium' charge to discourage trucks using roads at peak times.
The ETA adds: "The charging and fuel duty system must operate on a paperless basis and use electronic accounting." The charter document was presented at today's (11 September) meeting of the Road Haulage Forum.