Assault and battery by statistics
Page 28
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by Martin Huckett
WHEN the Government gave birth last week to the terrible twins—volumes one and two of the Transport Policy Green Paper—only the first of its new children made the headlines.
For volume one screamed its arrival by immediately threatening all and sundry with increased taxes, increased fares and slashed subsidies.
Not surprisingly, in all the uproar that followed, volume two, a quiet child with a head crammed full of statistics, slipped quietly into the background.
But over the next three months, during which there will be consultation about the Green Paper's plans, hauliers will find that this dark horse will take on much more of the running.
Its 124 pages contain all the evidence on which the proposals contained in volume one are based. And that means if you want to argue with one then you have to get out your .pocket calculator and take on two as well.
Almost every haulier will know by now that the Green Paper argues that the lorry is not paying its way. It suggests that taxes be increased to a level which would put up the operating costs for all commercial vehicles by 5 per cent and for some of the heaviest vehicles by 15 per cent.
Laugh !
That's about as far as volume one takes the argument. Volume two on the other hand devotes 18 pages to it, and that's not something that can just be laughed away.
Volume two says that over the past 10 years there have been substantial changes in the balance of tax revenue paid to meet highway costs that are attributable to the different vehicle categories.
In 1965/66 the larger goods vehicles (over 30cwt unladen) paid as a group more in tax than their share of road costs. But by 1975/76 volume two estimates that the ratio of tax paid against costs had fallen from 1.8 to 1, to 0.8 to 1. Some individual vehicles with few axles in relation to their weight had fallen as low as 0.6 to 1.
The surpluses in the earlier years have been qualified by the fact that no estimates were made to cover the cost of road accidents, noise, pollution, vibration, etc. This also means that the deficits were also, to the Government's way of thinking, even bigger than just stated.
From this sort of evidence it is a short step for volume two to conclude that tax on fuel and licence fees would have to be brought into line with highway costs.
How have these cost figures been worked out? Well, the document splits up costs associated with roads into three parts: user, public and community.
• User costs are those which fall directly on vehicle users, such as fuel, oil and tyres. Fuel tax and licence fees are, says volume two, user costs which do not represent consumption of resources but a transfer from vehicle users to the State.
"These taxes can therefore be usefully compared with the total of public and community costs which are not directly borne by vehicle users to find out if vehicles are sufficiently taxed to compensate government for its expenditure on highways and other members of the community for the costs to them."
• Public costs are those which local and central government have to meet for the building, maintaining, cleaning, lighting and policing of the roads.
• Community costs are those suffered by non-vehicle users resulting from accidents, noise, fumes and vibration.
Although the Department of the Environment makes it clear that it cannot put a figure on community costs the report says that "their existence may clearly justify the gathering of tax revenue from road users over and above the public road costs they cause."
No mention is made in this equation of any social benefit that the lorry may claim. No doubt that point will be brought out by the trade associations when they make their submissions to the Government.
Expenditure
Volume two then moves on to look at the way that costs should be allocated. Highway expenditure depends on three characteristics of the vehicles making up the total traffic. These are the kilometres run, the total weight of the vehicles, and the fourth power of the weights on the vehicle's axles.
New data had made it possible to estimate the sums spent on the different items of maintenance and repair and it is possible, providing the three characteristics are known, to allocate the costs between vehicle categories.
Costs could be distributed not only between broad vehicle classes but between the different types of goods vehicle categorised by gvw and the number of axles.
Some goods vehicles did actually cover the road costs allocated to them, while for others only about half the costs were covered. This can be seen from the table reproduced on this page.
The document says that although about 60 per cent of goods vehicles over 3.5 tons gvw paid more in tax than they cost, it is clear that the larger vehicles in any "number of axles" category did not cover their costs.
It is from this sort of statistical assault and battery, which has been very much simplified here, that volume one comes up with the suggestions which have been met with such hostility by the industry (see page 2 this week).
Useful
However, there is a good deal in volume two which the haulier and the coach operator should find useful and interesting. For example, it points out that in contrast to tonneskilometres actual tonnages of goods being carried have not increased at all over the past 10 years.
All of the increase in tonnekilometres have been due to the increased distances over which goods are carried. There had been a trend away from local suppliers to fewer and larger factories supplying a nationwide service.
It is expected that this trend will continue. The document also says that tonnage of goods carried is depressed and the forecast for 1980 is still below the high point of 1968. Useful points for any haulier looking to the future,