ROAD TOLL TRIALS CRUMBLE
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by Miles Brig nail • The Government's plan to use road charges to cut congestion is collapsing because half the companies invited to undertake trials in electronic tolling have pulled out. Three of the eight firms due to take part in this summer's trial on the M3 have already declined and a fourth is expected to follow suit soon blaming a lack of ministerial support. The firms say there are costs of between V -2m each, with no guarantee of any contracts at the end.
Transport minister Sir George Young said last year he believed the future lay in charging road users a figure closer to the full cost of using the rood, but he is now planning to postpone plans indefinitely. Instead he will try to salvage the scheme by announcing that the Transport Research Laboratory in Berkshire will undertake a scaled-clown version, say insiders. A spokeswoman for the Department of Transport says the Government is still committed to idea of motorway tolling and insists the M3 trial will take place early in 1997.
One expert says the trial is "dead in the water because the remaining consortia are offering broadly similar systems". The biggest challenge they face is finding a system capable of logging traffic in sufficient numbers, to cope with British roads.