Road user charging

Rural motoring

• CfIT believes that for an integrated transport policy to be fully effective, road users should pay prices that reflect the costs that they impose.
• For the road user, theses costs include the resources used to make their journey, such as fuel and roads. However, they make little contribution to external costs, such as the congestion, noise and pollution that their journey creates.
• The current UK system of charging for road use - motoring taxation - is not structured to ensure that all road users pay to covers these external costs.
• 80% of congestion is concentrated in urban areas. Yet, rural motorists, who generally travel on quieter, less busy routes and therefore contribute less to local pollution levels - still pay the same motoring taxation as urban commuters travelling on heavily congested roads.
• Under CfIT's national road pricing, rural motorists using quieter, less congested roads would generally pay lower motoring taxes than they do at present.
• However, CfIT is mindful of the importance of ensuring that in designing a scheme based on lower charges for less busy roads, it would be necessary not to encourage additional driving on rural roads, or to undermine public transport services, particularly rural buses.