Roadtrack plan to reduce jams
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by Rob Willock • Radical plans to privatise the roads network were proposed last week by leading academics and economists as a means of solving the UK's growing congestion problem.
Cambridge professor David Newbery, who also holds a position within the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, suggested at a London conference the establishment of Roadtrack, based on the lines of the railways authority Rai1track.
policy that "users pay the full social and environmental cost of their transport decisions". Regional roads operators would be given overall control of their local transport assets, but would also loaded with debt.
And they would be bound by a duty agreement to provide a minimum quality of service monitored by a regulator, Ofroad.
Delegates at the Chartered Institute of Transport conference, Strategic Roads Review, also heard from Robin Gisby, head of freight at Railtrack, how the country's railways are working, while its roads are plainly not. "Delays to railfreight comprise less than 2% of total transit time, and we've still got 50% capacity," he told them. "You haven't."
Gisby also boasted of Railtrack's £4m-a-day investment in the railway infrastructure, and contrasted that to the Government's declining road budget.