Toll plan threat to daytime deliveries
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by Juliet Morrison • Motorway tolls could force many hauliers to switch to overnight deliveries within five years.
The Government's reply to the Transport Select Committee's report on tolls this week talks of "a tariff to encourage travel at less congested times, thereby spreading peak period congestion", with tolls suspended at certain times.
The report rules out a Transport Select Committee suggestion that increasing fuel duty could be a more workable substitute to motorway tolls.
The DOT believes that increasing fuel duty would not give drivers an incentive to make better use of the road network. It also dismisses the allparty committee's plan to replace VED on trucks with a distance-related charge for all roads: measuring the distance a truck has travelled with a hubodometer would be open to abuse, says the DOT.
Instead the Department looks set to press ahead with its original plan to charge hauliers about 4.5p a mile, using in-cab toll recording equipment.
Tolls will be aimed at the motorway network, says the Government report, but some stretches of high-quality nonmotorway road may also be tolled.