RHA: Eurovignette Directive: “Improved performance but at a considerable cost” says RHA
Eurovignette Directive: “Improved performance but at a considerable cost” says RHA
The European Parliament yesterday ratified an agreement with the Council and the Commission which will increase charges for HGVs using European motorways and charge for their so-called 'external costs' such as noise and pollution. A congestion premium can also be added where authorised by individual Member States as can a mark-up for vehicles crossing areas of environmental sensitivity such as the Alpine region.
The basic charges can be either distance or time based as now, but not both. Vehicles above 12 tonnes are currently in scope, but vehicles above 3.5 tonnes will come into scope in due course. Member States will not be required to levy tolls or charges but the new rules and rates must be followed if they do.
Unfortunately, the environmental parts of the charges need not be used exclusively for investment in the road network for environmental improvements. So called earmarking will be allowed but not all will be passed back to road users. In other words Member States will not have to use revenues to reduce any of the problems for which the road haulage sector will be charged.
The environmental charges alone will add 2p per mile, congestion charges can be up 175% of off peak charges and all motorways could be affected, not just the Trans-European Networks. One press report calculates that barely 5% of the new money raised will be spent on TEN-T road networks, which means that 95% of that money could be lost in administration costs or transferred to other modes.
"Much is left to local negotiation and so long as revenue neutrality is maintained, the long term effects in the UK, which does not have many tolls, may be small," said Peter Cullum, RHA Head of International Affairs. "However, that will not be the case in Europe where British hauliers operating abroad will have to pay any new charges without offsets.
"In addition", he continued, "if the UK introduces a new road charging regime it would have to comply with the Directive and use an electronic system, which means road usage costs could double. And regardless of the UK there is also a risk that affected motorways could see peak time tolls double anyway without any meaningful offsets for road users.
"Until foreign hauliers pay towards use of our roads we will continue to subsidise the competition while we may have to wait a while before other modes pay their external costs. But catching the foreigners may mean a pyrric victory for UK hauliers as their charges could rise anyway. The bad news is that affected motorways, including those covered by any new UK road user charge scheme, could see peak time tolls of up to 85p per mile. Equally threatening is that the new Directive allows the Commission to make further proposals, including mandating changes, which could be passed by majority vote in the medium term.
Road Haulage Association – phone us first
For more details, contact RHA Head of Media Relations, Kate Gibbs on . . .
Tel: +44 (0) 1932 838917
Mob: + 44 (0) 7979 531451
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