PETER Roberts, a 46-year-old father of two from Telford, Shropshire, can reflect on a job well done this weekend. His online petition on the Downing Street website, calling for the cancellation of plans for road pricing schemes in Britain, had last night secured more than 1.5 million signatures.
Whitehall, where plans for a new era of road pricing are being worked up, has been forced to take notice. "We did ask for a debate," one official ruefully reflected. "My, have we got it."
But despite Roberts' phenomenal viral campaign, the govern
ment on both sides of the Border insist that a pay-as-you-drive system is near inevitable in the not too distant future. The only debate appears to remain over exactly how it will happen.
As we report today, ministers at Holyrood appear to have become, if anything, emboldened by the petition controversy. Tavish Scott, the Lib Dem Transport Minister at Holyrood, is pledging to enter negotiations with the Treasury to abolish car tax, and reduce fuel duty in Scotland, in order to sweeten the road pricing pill if ministers in Whitehall are scared off by the popular revolt.
That does not appear to be on the cards, with Westminster Transport Minister Douglas Alexander said to be staying firm in his approach. His plans are, in any case, already well advanced.
The government's case for road pricing is also well rehearsed. A study by former British Airways chief executive Sir Rod Eddington declared late last year that a national road pricing scheme would cut traffic levels to 50% below what they would otherwise be in 2025.
He added that it would save the country £15bn in production which would otherwise be lost in the fumes of hundreds of thousands of traffic snarl-ups.
A road pricing scheme would charge motorists up to £1.28 per mile for using the busiest roads at peak time - raising the cost of the average 9.6-mile inner city commute to £24.57 a day. Despite the cost, Eddington described the moves as a "no-brainer".
The technology for road pricing is already available, either as a black box fitted under a car's bonnet, or a 'tag' on the windscreen.
In the former case, the box - fitted with GPS satellite tracking - would record both the time and movement of the car, leaving an electronic trail. Charges would then be sent to the motorists, with the cost dependent on the amount of traffic on the road and the time of day. Such a scheme is expected to be introduced in Abu Dhabi this year.
In the latter case - a tag and beacon system - a transmitter on a car's windscreen would emit a signal to roadside receivers which in turn would send the data to a control centre. Again, a bill would then be sent out. A similar scheme running in Singapore has proven a success, with motorists who do not clog up roads at busy times being rewarded with lower tax bills.
Later this summer, English local authorities will be invited to bid to host the country's first pilot scheme, which could be up and running by 2010, and rolled out across the country by 2014.
This timetable appears to be too long for Scottish ministers, who are already considering their own regional pilot in what is described as a "medium-sized urban area". Their preference is for a UK-wide scheme - but Scott says today that he will not wait for too long.
Motoring groups remain sceptical. If busy trunk roads and motorways end up being the most expensive, drivers could swarm onto smaller roads to cut their bills.
Neil Greig, of the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said: "Most road deaths occur on single carriageways. If you put more traffic onto rural roads then you might find you don't help road safety."
As Peter Roberts has shown, this debate has got a long way to go yet.
