Blog - June 2009
The Financial Times of 25 June quotes Lord Adonis, the new Secretary of State for Transport, as saying that the government will ‘definitely not’ proceed with a national road-user charging scheme if it wins the next election. This was said after he delivered his conference speech, the published text of which did not mention road pricing.
On the very same day the Department of Transport published the findings of its ‘citizens’ panel’ on motorway driving. 60% of some 500 panel members reported that the reason why congestion is a problem is that it makes journey times uncertain. 50% would set out at a different time to avoid congestion.
These findings point to how best to deal with congestion. As I argued in Chapter 8 of ‘The Limits to Travel’, we need to use information technology to deliver reliable information to travellers about traffic conditions, best routes, and expected journey times, before they set out on their trips. Then people could make sensible decisions about trip timing, and uncertainty could be reduced to an acceptable level.
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