AT THE HEART OF THE ROAD TRANSPORT INDUSTRY.

Call our Sales Team on 0208 912 2120

Comment

7th December 2006
Page 3
Page 3, 7th December 2006 — Comment
Close
Noticed an error?
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.

Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

WE CANNOT WAIT FOR SOLUTIONS

£10bn a year for business and £12bn for households. That's the cost of unchecked congestion by 2025, according to Sir Rod Eddington's report. The Eddington Transport Study is a fair and sensible call to action, albeit largely making points that we hope the government has already taken on board. However, Eddington's brief was to examine the link between economic growth and the need for transport in 2015 and beyond -which leaves us wondering what we do in the meantime.

In practical terms. the 2015 target for national road pricing has its justifications. No one has come up with a better idea for demand management. and it is crucial that we implement it properly. A proliferation of pilot schemes is a scary prospect but listening to Eddington one gets the impression that while the technology might be universal, regional solutions to regional problems might be the theme of the finished product. Road pricing is also the perfect legacy policy: necessary, but desperately unpopular with the voters, it is best left to the next government.

What cannot be left is a coherent policy towards making the best use of the UK's infrastructure and starting to expand the capacity of key freight routes. Road pricing might remove the need for much inter-urban building, but certain trade routes, rightly identified by the Freight Transport Association, will require far greater capacity over the next few years.

"Necessary but unpopular, road pricing is best left to the next government"

Nor can the government defer attempts to suppress demand for non-essential private transport. There are 26 million cars on the road now, and that figure will grow massively.

The government is in a bind. Its resources are too stretched and somewhere along the way transport stopped being a national prority. But if it thinks commissioning reports set well in the future will be a panacea for the present it is wrong. The transport industry must deliver today so must government.

Tags

People: Rod Eddington

comments powered by Disqus