Reports:
Paying for road use
Chapter 4: The benefits of congestion relief
Our research looked at the impact of our congestion charging model on different types of roads across the country. The impacts of congestion charging have been estimated on the basis of the present highway network and present traffic levels. All calculations of the changes in congestion have been made using the measure of congestion that the DTLR adopted for the 10-Year Transport Plan.
Although the comprehensive congestion charging scheme could not be introduced for some years, we have modelled its impact on this basis so as to bring home to present day motorists, road hauliers and decision makers the consequences of having a more sensible system of paying for road use, by making clear the real impact that this would have on traffic conditions with which people are familiar.
By the time such a charging system could be introduced car ownership will have grown further, but implementation of the 10-Year Plan will also lead to improvements in the road network and in provision of public transport services. The alternative approach, of modelling the growth in traffic and improvements in the transport system in the 10-Year Plan, would be unnecessarily complicated for our objective, which is to demonstrate that, whatever the levels of traffic in our crowded island, congestion charging can bring real benefits in terms of better use of the system, less congestion and greater network reliability.
Changes in traffic and congestion relate only to the charges introduced, not to any other measures such as re-prioritising road space. No modelling has been undertaken to assess the further benefits to road users that greater reliability would bring, though the FTA has carried out a survey of members for us to inform on this.
Urban areas
Congestion reductions were shown to amount to 34% in central London (over two minutes saving per mile). In inner and outer London, the percentage reduction is higher, though absolute levels lower: travel times in inner London fall by over one minute per mile, for example[4].
In conurbations, congestion levels fall by around 35% and in small urban areas, by around 11 or 12%.
Traffic reductions were shown to be the greatest in Central London - nearly 20 % - then inner London - around 16% - with reductions of between 11 to 13 % in outer London and the inner areas of conurbations such as Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester and 8-9 % in the largest other cities like Hull, Southampton, Leicester and Middlesborough.
|
Molly runs her two small children to school twice a day in Bristol. She pays 30p a day in congestion charges, that is £60 over the school year. She does, however, save £1.50 every other week when she fills up with petrol. Molly discusses the cost of the school run with the other parents and they decide to set up an informal car-sharing group. On average Molly now only needs to do the school run every third day, when she also takes her neighbours' children in the car. This idea catches on and the school Governors decide to set up a more formal system. Overall trips to the school reduce by 30% considerably reducing the local congestion and pollution.
Molly finds that she doesn't need the car with her all the time, as she no longer has to pick the kids up every day and now she is able to go to her computer class in the bus.
|
|
Paul commutes daily into Central Manchester from Altrincham, a distance of 10 miles. The journey normally takes an hour in the morning, though sometimes it can take more than 80 minutes. Back in the evening the traffic is typically not as bad, so the average journey time is 45 minutes, though again it can take an hour. Paul has to spend £6 a day on parking charges near his office. The congestion charge would be £3.00 there and back. There would be a reduction in petrol costs of £6 a month. Paul would save about 10 minutes a day on average and there would be fewer really bad journeys when the traffic gets heavily clogged up. Over a year Paul pays £675 in congestion charges, offset by a £66 fall in fuel tax on his commuting journey but he and his wife save around £100 through reduced fuel costs for leisure journeys.
Paul is now paying £500 a year more. But with the improved journey conditions Paul finds his car commute much less stressful and he saves about 5 working days a year that would otherwise be spent sitting in traffic jams.
Having had their first child, Paul's wife Sarah decides to give up work. As money is tighter, Paul decides instead to use the Metrolink light rail system to get to work. He gets an annual ticket costing £832, but he saves £625 in car running costs, £1320 in parking charges, and the £675 congestion charges. Overall he is £1788 better off.
|
Motorways and trunk roads
Our congestion charging scheme would mainly apply on about 10% (in length) of the motorway network and other trunk roads and would apply to those sections and those times of day, mostly affected by congestion.
The average weekday charge on motorways would be 3.5 pence per mile for cars (compared with 4.3 pence per mile on other roads), and the total annual revenue raised would be around £1.1 billion.
Overall, motorway charging would lead to a 2.6 % fall in motorway traffic. Average travel times in the charging period would fall by over 3 %, and congestion as measured using the DTLR definition would fall by over one third.
Typical motorway charges for a car at the busiest times of the day are:
| London - Rugby (M1) (approx 80 miles) | £3.40 |
| Birmingham - Manchester (M6) (approx 90 miles) | £7.40 |
| London - Oxford (M40) (approx 55 miles) | £4.50 |
| Liverpool - Leeds (M62/M60) (approx 75 miles) | £5.70 |
| Maidstone - Luton (M20/M25/M1) (approx 80 miles) | £9.50 |
However, it should be noted that charges in France are not differentiated by time of day in the way that CfIT proposes, so that French drivers pay tolls 24 hours a day.
| Paris - Reims (approx 100 miles) | £5.30 |
| Grenoble - Valence (approx 80 miles) | £4.70 |
| Montpellier - Arles (approx 50 miles) | £2.70 |
| Lyon - Grenoble (approx 65 miles) | £5.40 |
|
Louise, an IT consultant, makes a 95 mile journey, mainly along the M1 motorway, from Rugby to Sheffield every Monday morning. She sets off at about 8am to travel to the regular team meeting. The motorway is quite congested, and she incurs a congestion charge of £7, partly offset by a £1.40 reduction in fuel duty. Average journey time is reduced by a small amount, but the journey time is now much more predictable because the motorway is less prone to extremely heavy traffic and serious flow break-downs. Consequently the meeting can now start 30 minutes earlier and she can still be confident of arriving on time. The journey to her first client is not quite so congested but there is a charge of £4.50, with a £1.40 saving in fuel duty. Louise makes the journey 40 times a year and she pays an extra £348, but saves over three working days a year on the road. Since Louise charges her clients £100 per hour, she is able to generate £2400 extra income for her company a year.
|
|
Peter, a retired bank manager, drives 140 miles from Norwich in East Anglia to Dudley in the West Midlands to visit his daughter. He makes the journey in the middle of the day, mostly along trunk roads. The trip is relatively uncongested so there is only a 10p charge along a short section of the route. He makes the journey there and back once a week. If, as a result of the introduction of charges, fuel duty is reduced, Peter would be £190 better off in a full year. On the other hand, if VED were to be abolished as well as a smaller reduction in fuel duty, Peter would be about £180 better off.
|
|
Derek is a travelling salesman who drives around 30,000 miles a year for his firm. Derek's work takes him all around the North East, including Newcastle and other congested areas, mainly during the working day. With his present pattern of travel he would incur £1,800 in congestion charges and save about £600 in fuel tax. Time spent travelling would be reduced by over 40 hours - 5 working days. This would increase his productivity considerably. He can make lots more calls and be able to predict when he will arrive for appointments with greater certainty. Derek earns an extra £2000 for his company and his commission goes up.
In fact, once the charges are introduced Derek changes his pattern of travel to avoid the highest charged times, while still managing to take on extra clients. As he now drives less in congested conditions, Derek finds his job less stressful than before.
The productivity savings are just as great as had originally been predicted. Derek's company covers the cost of his charges, but they are still overall £1,000 better off.
|
|
Joanne commutes from Brighton to Croydon each week to her job as a recruitment executive. There is serious congestion at the Croydon end of the trip, so her 43-mile journey takes an hour and a half. For the return journey, the congestion charge will be £14. Joanne will have to pay an extra £2,300 in congestion charges (less reduced fuel costs), but because of the improved journey quality, she will save five working weeks over a year in reduced travelling time. Joanne can now get to the office half an hour earlier each morning and because she works flexi-time, she decides to leave 10 minutes later each evening, allowing her to have every other Friday off. This means that her congestion charges are now £2070 and Joanne also appreciates the extra time this gives her with her family, and her employer has noticed that her work has improved as a result.
But the congestion charge makes her think about whether to try the train again now that rail services are reckoned to be more reliable than they were when she switched to using her car for this daily journey. Joanne's annual season ticket costs her £2,200, but she saves £2,150 in running costs, £860 in parking charges and is not now paying congestion charges. As she is able to work on the train with her laptop, her boss has agreed that she can now have every Friday off, as long as she meets her deadlines. Overall she is £2880 better off.
|
Rural
Rural roads include all roads in rural areas - trunk roads and principal A roads - except motorways.
For rural motorists who use roads that do not have high congestion levels and who therefore contribute less to local pollution levels, a lower average daytime charge of 1.0 pence per car mile would be levied should congested routes be used. Our scheme shows that this cost will reduce traffic levels by 2.4%, and reduce congestion by 11%. There would be £494 million raised in annual revenue to be used to reduce the cost of VED or petrol duty.
There are clearly benefits for many living in rural areas. However, CfIT is mindful of the importance of ensuring that in designing a scheme based on our concept, it would be necessary not to encourage additional driving on rural roads, or indeed, undermine rural bus services.
|
Joe drives a milk tanker 50,000 miles a year in the North of England, collecting milk in rural areas. He never drives in congested city centres or on a busy motorway, but he does drive through some busy town centres and trunk roads and so he pays around £500 a year in congestion charges. However, because of his mileage he gains from a significant reduction in his fuel costs, over £4,500 in a full year. His overall operating costs are reduced by about £4,000 a year. This extra profit allows Joe to expand his business by buying another tanker and employing another driver. He takes on more customers, but is still able to spread the workload a bit, meaning that Joe can take an extra holiday with his family.
|
|
Sarah lives in a village in the East Midlands and works in a medium sized town which is around 16 miles away. There is not much congestion in the area and the congestion charge is small. Over the course of the year, she spends around £60 in charges for this journey, but saves around £200 in lower fuel costs.
|
|
Barbara lives in a small village in the south west of England. She doesn't drive a great deal, under 3,000 miles a year, mainly for short trips in or near the village. Occasionally she travels further distances but, as Barbara is retired, she can avoid travelling at busy times of day. She does pay some congestion charges amounting to around £14 a year, though these are more than compensated for by £100 or more savings a year, if the congestion charges were used to fund reductions in VED.
|
Freight
In its current consultation paper on Modernising the Taxation of the Haulage Industry the Government states as one of its objectives that road users should contribute towards the true costs that they impose on society. It proposes that the best way to deliver this (for lorries) is to introduce a lorry road user charge alongside reductions in other taxes levied on operators. CfIT's concept is in line with this approach.
Under the scheme HGVs would pay 11% of the total congestion charges, which reflects the fact that they travel proportionately more on motorways and on trunk roads than cars.
The charges also correlate generally to the costs that lorries impose in pollution and congestion terms, which could be reinforced by relating the charge to the vehicle weight, number of axles and vehicle emission standards.
All charges would be returned to the haulage industry through offsetting tax reductions. The annual benefits in terms of reduced congestion, thereby reducing operating times and costs, would amount to £191.3 million. On top of this would be the benefits of improved journey reliability leading to shorter waiting times at delivery points.
For rigid lorries, the average charge per km on the motorway would be 3.9p, on a rural road 1.1p, on a medium urban road 3.4p and on a small urban road a charge of 2.2p. Similarly for articulated lorries, the average charge per km on the motorway would be 5.4p, on a rural road, 1.5p, on a medium urban road 4.7p and on a small urban road, a charge of 3.0p.
As VED for HGVs is already very close to the EU baseline, the scope to reduce VED in return for paying congestion charges is limited. Therefore, some way would have to be found to pass on reductions to hauliers through fuel duty.
|
Bill drives an articulated lorry from Southampton Docks to Luton, starting in the afternoon and arriving in Luton just after 6pm. Most of his journey is along motorways, the M271 and M27 in Hampshire, the M3 towards London, round the M25 and then up the M1. Traffic is particularly heavy on the M25 and the M1 at this time of the day. The congestion charge is £21, though the charging scheme reduces traffic flow so that the average journey time falls by 20 minutes. In addition, the variability of the journey time is reduced because the system is less prone to chronic congestion. This is particularly important for Bill as he must reach Luton by 6.30pm to meet the customer's deadline.
The reduced traffic flow means that while Bill previously had to leave the docks at Southampton with 45 minutes in hand, he now only needs to allow a margin of 15 minutes. Now he can set off 30 minutes later than before. In addition fuel duty for the journey is reduced by £8. Bill makes this trip around 30 times in a year. While he pays £630 in congestion charges, he saves £240 in fuel duty and reckons the journey time and reliability savings are worth £750 to his haulage business.
The congestion charges also encourage him to rearrange his schedules to make the trip earlier in the day when the M25 and M1 are less congested, and when the congestion charge will only be £4, adding to his profitability and reducing pollution.
|
|
Stan drives an articulated lorry 120 miles from Liverpool Docks to Coventry, setting off at around 8.30 am on a weekday. This is a motorway journey, and the main section involves the very busy M6 through Cheshire and Staffordshire. The congestion charge is £10.50, but average time saving is 10 minutes and there is a saving of £9.40 in fuel duty. Before the introduction of the congestion charge the journey time is very difficult to predict because high traffic volumes can trigger serious traffic jams. After charging has been introduced the situation is much improved, and Stan is able to leave Liverpool 35 minutes later than before and still be sure of reaching Coventry in time for his delivery. In the course of a year Stan makes this trip 50 times, he pays £530 in congestion charges, but £470 less in fuel duty. Overall his employer pays £60 a year more, but the time saving (29 hours in total) is worth £600, more than compensating him.
|
|
Ahmed's lorry is used by a distribution business based in Yorkshire. It runs some 55,000 miles, all around England, about average for this type of medium-size artic. It incurs congestion charges of some £3,600 in a year, but this is more than offset by fuel duty savings of £4,400, a net saving of £800. Overall journey times are reduced by 3 per cent and there are further benefits from greater certainty in collection and delivery times.
|
Environmental benefits
The transport sector accounts for about 23% of total carbon dioxide emissions, and within this, road traffic is one of the fastest growing sources. Road transport accounts for the highest proportion of all CO2 emissions from transport.
Evidence shows that if congestion is reduced, then a fall in pollution follows. A study by Bell, Margaret C and Lear, D.W (1989), 'A study of air pollution levels in Athens and Nottingham' for the University Transport Research Group found that over saturation at critical junctions of a road network increases air emissions. In Athens, typically congested stops may increase emissions by up to about 40%. An important result of this study was to demonstrate that air emissions are highly correlated with flow levels and that traffic restraint in city networks is the only effective measure to reduce pollution significantly. A combination of restraint and re-distribution of traffic in Athens demonstrated that air pollution can be reduced overall by 36% which corresponds to a 27% reduction of traffic flow. The University Transport Research Group found that modelling in UK cities is consistent with these findings.
Within the constraints of this study, we have not been able to carry out research to quantify the benefits that congestion reduction has on the environment. We believe, however, that there are real gains to be made in this area and recommend that further research be undertaken to demonstrate the relationship between congestion and vehicle emissions.
Social inclusion#
There is a fear that imposing congestion charging in the UK will further exacerbate the problem of social exclusion by making the cost of motoring even higher and thereby create another barrier to jobs, leisure and education for those people on low incomes.
However, the CfIT scheme does not create an additional level of charges for the road user, but replaces the way we currently pay for road use with a new, fairer charging system. So whilst motorists on low incomes would still have to pay congestion charges if they had to drive in congested conditions, they would equally benefit by receiving a reduction in VED or lower fuel duty. It will mean that they will only be charged for the amount of travel they do on congested roads, rather than subsidising other higher income motorists, who tend to use their cars more (up to almost twice as much on average)[5].
Source: European best practice in delivering integrated transport, CfIT, 2001.
It could be argued that it is not the congestion charge that should be of concern in this debate, but the accessibility in terms of the cost of using public transport, which, together with walking, is the most frequent mode of travel for those on low incomes. 64% of the poorest households in Britain do not own a car. They also make the fewest car trips, making on average 324 car trips a year, compared with the general population average of 645 and compared with the wealthiest household average of 860 trips. The average annual car mileage in lower income households was 6,500 miles compared with 11,400 miles for cars in the highest income bracket (DTLR, Personal Travel survey, 2001). The real issue for many on low incomes is the availability and cost of public transport.
This is also the case for the more elderly sections of society who are heavily dependent on public transport. 91% of single pensioners and 53% of pensioner couples do not own a car, implying greater dependency on public transport, taxis or family and friends (Family Expenditure Survey 1996/7) and nearly half of all households without a car are 'pensioner' households (Transport Trends 1999). Our model of road user charging would bring benefit to those who frequently use the bus by facilitating improved journey times, improved reliability of the bus and through higher patronage comes the prospect of lower fares. Those pensioners that do own a car (and the proportion is forecast to rise) tend to have more discretion over what time of day they can travel and would, therefore, be able to benefit not just from lower levels of charges, but also from reduced fuel costs and/or the abolition of VED.
A new system of the way we pay for road use should therefore not have as large an impact for these households. Indeed, it is these households that are more likely to have reduced costs under a fiscally neutral approach.
4: Though we have used a different modelling approach to that undertaken to develop the London Mayor's charging scheme, the results are not inconsistent.
5: Personal travel survey (2001)-DTLR.
[ Previous ]
[ Contents ]
[ Next ]
