PAY AS YOU GO
Page 62
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ROAD PRICING is an idea which seems rapidly to lose its attraction as soon as any serious attempt is made to put it into practice. At first sight it seems reasonable to argue that each individual concerned should meet the additional cost resulting from his use of the road. Economists find the principle familiar and have applied it in other fields.
The Minister of Transport, Mrs. Barbara Castle, in her White Paper on transport policy published in July 1966, described a metering system as "the most obvious solution" to the problem of urban congestion. On subsequent occasions she has hinted at possible reservations.
The transport economist Mr. Gabriel Roth was a member of the Smeed Committee on road-pricing whicli reported in 1964. He has since made the subject almost his special preserve. His latest contribution, Paying for Roads, has just been published by Penguin Books Ltd. It makes suggestions for a new system of road taxation which commercial operators may well view with alarm.
Expenditure of the money paid for road use would under Mr. Roth's scheme be in the hands of a roads authority. It would have to charge users amounts as near as possible equivalent to the main costs arising out of their journeys, including congestion costs. Out of the revenue it would meet the cost of providing roads and it should "expand those parts of the system on which revenues exceed outgoings". It would not expand and might even contract those parts of the system on which outgoings exceeded revenues.
Exceptions admitted
Such a system might be appropriate and possibly already operates in certain industries. It will not work with road users. Mr. Roth himself has to admit exceptions to the basic principle of supply and demand regulating the road system. Where a particular part of the system is not self-supporting, he says, subsidies might be offered by public authorities. At another point he generously allows that his structure of charges designed to reflect economic costs need not prevent the Chancellor of the Exchequer from imposing whatever additional taxes appeal to him.
All that Mr. Roth would require under his system to recover road use costs (as distinct from congestion costs) would be 10d a gallon on fuel for private cars. For heavy lorries, particularly those With diesel engines, an additional licence fee might be required. This scale of charges seems admirable until it is realized that the unfortunate user would probably still be expected to pay separately to the Government at the rate of 3s id per gallon, plus the present vehicle licence duties.
Mr. Roth does not accept the distinction drawn in the Buchanan report Traffic in Towns between traffic for essential purposes, that is to say for trade, business and industry, and the optional use of cars for private pleasure and convenience. An economist, says Mr. Roth, would judge whether or not a journey was essential not by examining its purpose but by measuring the benefits and losses arising from it. "To the economist there is a presumption that a journey is worth making if the benefits resulting from it are larger than the costs".
Difficult to follow
The argument is particularly difficult to follow here. The intention of the private motorist is merely to get from one place to another. The purpose of the commercial operator, more especially the haulier, is to make a profit out of the journey. He can assess the likelihood with reasonable precision if he has made a careful enough study of his costs and if he can depend upon the customer paying the proper rate. Among the costs he must reckon that of congestion and Mr. Roth would make him also responsible for the estimated cost of the congestion which he causes to other people.
In an ideal world the motorist would no doubt make the same kind of calculations. That he does so in some indirect way is Mr. Roth's assumption. The motorist weighs the cost of the congestion tax against the charms of the girl he is going to meet and makes his decision whether or not she is worth it. The sum of all the other decisions affecting that particular stretch of road determines ultimately whether there is sufficient money to improve it.
Alternatives
Alternatives are available to the motorist. As Mr. Roth points out "People will not make a regular habit of spending hours in traffic jams". When conditions become so bad that speeds fall to 9 or 8 m.p.h., he says, they cancel their journeys, travel at different times, go by train or by bicycle, or walk. For the road user engaged on essential traffic in the Buchanan sense the problem is not solved quite so easily. Even with the help of the Freightliner goods have to be collected and delivered by road usually over that portion of the journey where there is the greatest congestion. To a limited extent it may be possible to avoid the peak periods but this can add to the cost. Mr. Roth's diagnosis of the habits of the motorist does not apply to the commercial driver. In particularly bad circumstances traffic jams become almost his way of life. He must finish his journey whatever happens
One point which has impressed itself on Mr. Roth is the way in which the ordinary person and frequently also the expert persist in making a special case of transport. The Ministry of Transport is not immune. In Parking—The Next Stage published in 1963 the Ministry states that "it is better—in the general interest—for eight vehicles to be able to use a street parking space in a day than for one to occupy it all day". This proposition Mr. Roth finds less than convincing. Parallel suggestions, he says, are that it is better for a hotel to have a different guest each night than the same guest for a week; that it is better to buy a pound of sugar in each of four shops than four pounds in one; and even that it is "fairer" to buy the various components of a suit from different tailors.
Bizarre assumptions
Mr. Roth finds equally bizarre the assumptions behind taxation based on the possession of a vehicle—and not on its use—and special tolls for motorways. The electricity boards, he says, charge according to the meter and do not share the total cost of units equally among all customers. Hotel keepers—favourite subjects for Mr. Roth's analogies—do not levy additional charges on new rooms solely on the grounds that they "have to be paid for".
Whatever the economists say the uneasy feeling remains that road transport cannot safely be treated on the same lines as other trades and industries. It is too complex to fit into a glib formula. There is room for improvement in almost every department and perhaps the right theory will emerge in due course from the welter of studies and surveys which have been taking place over the past 10 years or more. If Mr. Roth's own contribution turns out to be no more than a historical curiosity it will at least have served the purpose of making people think.