Road pricing support

Focus of work

In 2022, research revealed that a majority of people in London support replacing the current system of vehicle taxation and tolls, with per-mile road pricing supported by the majority of respondents as a potential replacement.

These intriguing results sparked questions about who were the voices of Londoners behind the statistics. Given that road pricing could work in a number of ways, what were some of the benefits that chimed with people? What were some of the concerns?

The Road Pricing project was devised to find, record and share the views of Londoners about road pricing, collecting the views of hundreds of people across inner and outer London.

Impact

The project raised awareness of road pricing and attracted a lot of discussion on social media channels:

• 19,000 people were reached through targeted Facebook ads
• 53,000 people watched their TikTok videos
• Over 1,000 total comments.

The findings showed that there are people who think road pricing is a good idea in both inner and outer London, with three key themes emerging. 

1. Fairness. Fairness came up again and again as the main benefit highlighted by respondents, with the idea of it being right to pay for how much you use included in several responses.
2. Discounts and exemptions. A number of submissions were concerned about discounts and exemptions, in particular for disabled people who rely of private vehicles for mobility. There was a clear and genuine concern that per-mile road pricing would restrict the mobility of disabled people. Any road pricing scheme must be designed by and for disabled people. Other groups that it was felt required discounts were people on low incomes that drive, the elderly and people living in the urban/rural fringe.
3. Congestion and modal shift. Many respondents were concerned about levels of congestion and saw road pricing as a way to ease that. Some respondents identified reduction in air pollution as a benefit. There was also some support because it was seen as a way to encourage modal shift.

Many responses that were against the idea altogether were also received, with many simply not believing that per-mile pricing would completely replace current charging and that it would be applied on top of the existing charging schemes.