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EN a motoring trade Dciation is looking for ways lemonstrating the zeal with ch it protects its members' Tests there are a number of ics guaranteed to be sure-fire ners. Attacking the payment Dlls for use of bridges and nels is one of these dead :s. It has been used by both RHA and the FTA recently. is especially topical because he Dartford Tunnel Bill now rig through Parliament. This Jld extend the power of the ex and Kent County Councils
■ perate the tunnel, and cifically continue the power harge tolls. Both powers Jld otherwise expire at the I of next year.
he RHA has petitioned linst the Bill. The Association specially opposed to the _Ise which would make it ier for the county councils to -ease the level of tolls, and of omission of any right for resentatives of those having rbstantial interest in the use he tunnel to make resentation on the "revision" ., increase) of the level of S.
urprisingly, the RHA's sent policy is not one of right opposition to alltolls as h. It simply opposes the irging of tolls on estuarial and er crossings which form part he motorway system.
ithe Association's view, the -tford Tunnel is, to all intents I purposes, part of the M25 er London orbital motorway, should be taken over and 3rated by the Government as t of the national road system
— presumably toll-free.
However, the RHA also reminds us that it is reviewing its policy towards tolls, and could in future "pursue a policy of total abolition of all road and crossing tolls."
Characteristically, the FTA has a more straightforward and direct approach to the question. It is in no doubt that road tolls, of all sorts, should be abolished. It said so unequivocally last November. It was this FTA statement that sparked off the RHA review.
The only surprise in this is that the RHA should need to spend time reviewing its policy. Surely it, too, should be against tolls. Certainly, one does not notice those driving vehicles of RHA members paying up with a smile on their faces.
The case against a road toll system as currently operated in Britain is that, like so many other aspects of transport policy, it is applied inconsistently. The Government's policy is to charge tolls at crossings which provide exceptional benefits to users. The FTA "Freight Facts" booklet lists many examples of free crossings which provide exceptional benefit. (However, all but one of these examples — the M5 bridge at Avonmouth — are in Scotland or Wales, traditionally favoured areas where road and rail benefits are concerned.) The most serious inconsistency lies in the purely financial field. The FTA booklet points out that the outstanding capital debt of five major crossings — Mersey, Erskine, Dartford, Tyne and Forth — actually increased from about £50m to over £200m between 1978 and 1982. The reason for this increase is simply explained. The net revenue — tolls less costs of collection — did not meet the cost of servicing the capital debt.
But the extent of this shortfall varies wildly: 65 per cent of the gross Dartford tunnel revenue is applied to servicing the debt; on the Severn Bridge the proportion is only 4 per cent.
The FTA has a delightfully simple solution to the problem. The Government should abolish tolls, and write off the £438m capital debt still outstanding.
Hastily they point out that this would not involve the Government spending another £438m. The actual cost, says the FTA (presumably with a straight face) would be the current toll revenue less the cost of toll collection — about £22 million. The fact that this is an annual figure is hardly emphasised.
The FTA's argument might be financially illiterate, but abolition would obviously be very welcome to most road users. However, even in more prosperous times, it seems most unlikely that any Government would abandon such a source of revenue. If the RHA's new policy is to be realistic it must recognise this.
One possibility might be to accept, however reluctantly, that the only sure way of getting rid of tolls is to pay off the capital debt. Inevitably this means increasing charges. But the collection costs would remain unchanged, so that a much greater proportion of the revenue would go towards paying off the capital, and thus arriving sooner at the RHA's current policy objective of a toll free motorway system.
The FTA calculates that to write off the capital debt over 20 years at present traffic levels would imply trebling present tolls. Taking the extreme case they say that this would raise the cost of a return journey for the heaviest lorry crossing the Humber Bridge to £45! Such savage increases would be liable to have severe repercussions on firms who had located themselves on the assumption that toll charges would remain roughly the same in real terms.
Flat rate increases over the whole country would only perpetuate the present inconsistencies and anomalies. The policy should be to fix toll charges in order to maximise revenue. This means setting them at a level which would (just) fail to deter a significant number of users. The actual percentage increase would obviously differ from crossing to crossing.
Coupled with this policy should be the establishment of a users' representative body for each crossing, to make recommendations about toll levels, to monitor the progress, and above all to produce regular published forecasts of when that particular crossing would finally be able to clear away the toll booths.
That would be a hard decision for the RHA to take. It would certainly be less immediately popular with the membership than the FTA's call for abolition. But the existing drift, so ably illustrated by the FTA, is getting no-one anywhere. The hard decision would at least see an end to toll payments. Otherwise they will go on for ever.