Urban Vehicle Design—and Pay-as-you-go?
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ANEW, two-pronged attack on the problem of traffic in towns was disclosed by Mr. Marples in the Commons on Wednesday. He told M.P.s that: the future design of road vehicles is to be studied to see if they could be better 'adapted to town and city use; and it has been proved possible to make users of congested roads pay directly for the space they take up. Mt. Marples said that, after consultation with the S.M.M.T., he was arranging for a panel to study future trends in vehicle design. The panel would include engineers from the motor industry and the Ministry, and representatives from research organizations. The questions to be asked, he added, were: cannot we design vehicles with size, power and manceuvrability to make them more suitable for town use; and cannot we reduce noise and fumes? Investigation would be made "of every vehicle that goes on to the road ". The chairmen of Ford, B.M.C. and Jaguar would all be on the steering committee guiding the panel's design trends study. M.P.s charged Mr. Marples with dragging up the noise and fume problem once again without offering anything more than another study. The Minister confirmed that so far no effective instrument had been produced to measure noise and smoke. Because of that, he said, he was now entering into partnership with •the makers so that the problem could be tackled jointly, On the second point, Mr. Marples disclosed that the Smeed Report on the possibility of road pricing, released yesterday (Thursday), would show that it was possible to have a system under which road users paid directly for the use they made of congested roads. "But ", he added, "no one can yet say whether such a system would be desirable. We need to know a good deal more about the much more important social, town planning, economic and administrative issues. We are now examining the need for further studies of these wide-ranging problems."