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No Exemptions for Lorries from Road Pricing Schemes
Page 38
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ARE we on the brink of implementation of a road pricing policy?' Such speculation was aroused by comments made by Mr. R. E. G. Brown, secretary, London and Home Counties Division, TRTA, in London on Friday. The occasion was a one-day conference sponsored jointly by the Institute of Transport and the North Western Polytechnic entitled "Transport in the Metropolis—Looking Ahead ".
Mr. Brown reminded delegates that the Smecd Report recommended that traffic volumes on roads could be controlled by price mechanism, with higher charges being made for vehicles using busy roads at busy times. He then disclosed that Dr. Beesley, economic adviser to the Minister of Transport, in a recent talk to the TRTA (from which the Press were excluded), made it quite clear that in his view such a scheme would allow for no exceptions. not even for the traffic Prof. Buchanan described as "essential "—lorries, buses and business cars. The theory was that if movement at a specific time in a given street was essential enough to pay a high price, that price would be paid, otherwise efforts would be made to fit the journey in at some other time.
The Minister of Transport had now set up a special committee to look into this and. however impractical one instinctively felt the idea was, Mr. Brown continued, it would be foolish not to recognize the truth of the claim that price mechanism was a very good disciplinarian.
But Mr. Brown wondered whether a better line of approach would be to try to use the price mechanism to enforce staggering of hours and the business day generally. For example, all bus and train tickets and all road vehicle excise licences could be in three colours. Thus a pink colour would prohibit a journey between 8.15 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. and 5.15 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. so that a user would have to start and finish early. Similarly, a blue colour could prohibit from 7 a.m. to 8.15 am. and from 4 p.m. to 5.15 p.m. whilst a white ticket or excise disc would be available for travel at any time but would cost two or three times the normal amount. in such circumstances the pressure on management for a staggering of office and shop hours would
be irresistible. S.B.