Safe Speed Forums

Motorists face paying tolls to drive on hard shoulder

Motorists face paying tolls to use motorway hard shoulders in an attempt to ease congestion as part of plans being fast-tracked by ministers.

By David Millward, Transport Editor
Last Updated: 9:23AM GMT 30 Oct 2008

Comments 15 | Comment on this article

Within months, officials will draw up plans to create a faster lane for those willing to pay for a quicker journey on the country's busiest roads during the rush hour.

Drivers would pay up to 42 pence a mile to avoid the jams under a model being considered by ministers.

Cars would be fitted with a transponder which fits to the windscreen and is linked to an account held by the motorist.

A payment would be deducted each time the car passed an overhead gantry.

The plans will be included in a review of the road and rail network to be published early next year.

It will also contain options to open up hard shoulders to all motorists free of charge at peak times in an attempt to keep traffic flowing.

Another proposal is building extra toll lanes on motorways for motorists who want to drive faster.

Up to 500 miles of motorway shoulder has been earmarked for the proposals.

This includes large sections of the M1, M6 and M62, along with the M27 around Southampton, the M4 and M5 near Bristol, and sections of the M23, M20, M3 and M4 that feed into the M25

In addition the Government is expected to introduce a system of variable speed limits – known as Active Traffic Management – designed to smooth traffic flow.

Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, has announced that work on the proposals was being speeded up.

The review will also examine plans for additional rail capacity – including a high speed network which would also link the major airports.

However, it is the Government's continuing interest in building additional toll lanes, which was confirmed to the Daily Telegraph by Lord Adonis, the new transport minister, which will catch the eye.

The biggest survey of motorists on the issue, a poll of 12,000 AA members, showed considerable public hostility to the idea, with 58 per cent rejecting the idea.

"There are a number of problems with it," said Edmund King, the AA's president.

"In America there have been problems when a slow driver gets into the toll lane and people resent having to pay to be stuck behind a snail."

The prospect of the introduction of toll lanes raised questions about whether drivers could be put at risk, said Rob Gifford, executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety.

"There are issues of how you come on and off a motorway," he said.

"If the toll lane is on the inside, it means that drivers who have paid for a faster journey will have to give way to those who have not.

"If the toll lane is the outside lane of the motorway, then toll users will have to cross two to three lines of traffic.

"Either way there could be some serious problems to sort out if they pressed ahead with this proposal,."

The creation of a toll lane would require legislation, which the other options under consideration would not.

It would entail a heavy investment in technology with the construction of the gantries over the toll lanes.

Motorists can expect to see the widespread introduction of Active Traffic Management – a combination of using the hard shoulder and variable speed limits - within the next few years.

This has been tested successfully on the M42 outside Birmingham, Lord Adonis said.

"We think this is capable of a radical extension," said Lord Adonis. "I was extremely impressed by how it reduced congestion, improved road safety reduced journey times."

Officials from the Highways Agency and Department for Transport visited Minnesota during the summer to look at a toll scheme there.

It applies to an 11-mile stretch of road and drivers are charged a fee ranging from about 5p to 42p a mile.

A transponder system is used to collect payments. The technology is already used in Britain on the Dartford crossing.

It is likely a pilot project will be run in Britain within in the next few years, possibly on the M606 near Leeds, which is already being used for a car share trial.

Another problem, anyone ever been in this situation, you're doing 70 and suffer an engine failure (or just run out of petrol, so you jump into the hard shoulder, put your hazard lights on and coast to a junction or the next services or whatever.