Good day my good friend.
I start off this newsletter by admitting I was wrong. And not just slightly wrong, really badly wrong. Turns out that last week, from what I can only describe as the result of spinning numerous plates, I got my calculations wrong. As a good many of you made very clear in your responses to me.
I am (not) happy to confirm that my calculations on fuel duties raised by the average petrol car every year were under-estimated. Though my broader point on the costs of EVs I feel still stands, and is somewhat supported by this research undertaken by Stonehaven consultants. In the meantime, enjoy seeing me eat humble pie. I can tell you it tastes awful.
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❓ The key questions posed by road user charging for EVs
Any new transport project or policy poses philosophical and practical questions. As planners and engineers, we tend to focus a lot on the latter as opposed to the former, although we are increasingly dabbling in that as well. When it comes to road pricing, many of these have been recited in well-worn debates down the years. Should there be variable charging according to time of day and location? How will it impact upon lower income families? What will the actual impacts on the network be? Will political leaders back it?
But the nature of plans to introduce distance-based charging for electric vehicles poses a different set of questions to officials seeking to deliver the policy, and not the ones we expect. The public seems to be broadly supportive of the plans - seeing them as an equaliser compared to fuel duty paid by others - so clearing a significant hurdle already, while distance-based charging seems to be the preferred method. That does not mean that delivering is easy, though.
How will the revenues raised be used?
Perhaps the trickiest question that this plan poses. There may be a temptation on behalf of the Treasury to capture the revenue raised to fill a hole in the public finances. But there is support among the public to hypothecate the revenue raised for transport purposes. Including discounted public electric vehicle charging. No doubt using the revenue raised to fund other transport improvements - maybe even to maintain the national £3 fare cap on buses - will no doubt be raised.
Doing this is hardly unheard of in the UK. Local authorities are required by law to reinvest funding raised from parking enforcement, parking charges, and congestion and workplace parking levies into transport improvements. But such a principle has never been insisted upon for central government.
Reinvesting in wider transport improvements makes sense to me, and offers the opportunity for Ministers to invest in potentially politically popular schemes outside of London. I certainly hope the temptation to use the revenue raised to plug a hole in the public finances is avoided.
Will it slow the transition to electric vehicles?
This is hard to guess. Transitioning to electric vehicles is a central pillar of the UK’s commitments to reduce carbon emissions. While the proportion of electric vehicles as part of the whole fleet is low, the percentage of new cars being electric vehicles has rapidly increased over the last 5 years.
Logically, an increase in running costs of electric vehicles is likely to decrease their relative attractiveness as a vehicle to own or operate. If I was to bet, this may impacts upon the used electric vehicle market, as more price sensitive consumers may be discouraged from taking the plunge on an electric vehicle. Just at a point where the used electric vehicle market is finally beginning to get going.
Results from Stated Preference Surveys indicate that those who really want an electric vehicle are unlikely to be discouraged by such policy initiatives. So I don’t expect the new electric vehicle market to be affected to a significant degree too soon.
The collection mechanism
The method of collecting the duties due from a distance-based charged need to balance ease of delivery, cost of delivery, and minimising opportunities for avoidance. In his excellent, Wolfson Prize winning work, Gergely Raccuja recommended that his road user charging scheme - based significantly on distance-based charging - be collected by insurers at the time of the renewal of motor insurance. This has a big advantage to government, in that its makes insurers liable to collect the correct duties, and consequently invest in enforcement. Because if insurers are known for anything, its for reducing their risk exposure.
Another mechanism, one that would likely involve primary legislation, is to make the mileage element of the annual MOT test compulsory, with mechanics leveraging the charge as part of the MOT. Again, this de-risks collection on the government, though the idea of forcing hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the country to be liable for such costs is hardly something that is friendly to small businesses.
The increased use of telematics and service packages in cars does offer an opportunity for a payment mechanism to be established. My instinct here is that if this were to be pursued, it would be part of a bigger strategy to roll out distance-based charging at a later date across all vehicles. Even here, this would be riddled with issues. Would additional software be needed and how would it interface with existing in-car systems? Is the car manufacturer responsible for collecting revenues, or the software provider? My thought is that insurers and the MOT offer the fastest route to delivery, even if they are imperfect.
Is the impact equitable?
I mentioned the fact that such a charge gives rise to a risk that lower income families may not benefit as quickly from the transition to electric vehicles. The equity impacts of such an initiative would be very interesting to see indeed.
On the financial side, lower income families could be discouraged from taking up electric vehicles, meaning they continue to operate old, polluting, and potentially more expensive petrol and diesel cars. Furthermore, rich electric vehicle owners would continue to benefit from such incentives as heavily discounted congestion charges, and some car parking.
Also, the poorest in society tend to live in the most polluted areas. Pollution which often comes from people driving through their area, as opposed from the community itself. Discouraging people from transitioning to electric vehicles could extend the time which such communities continue to be exposed.
Much of this impact will depend on how the revenue raised is re-invested, or not. Arguable a more just approach is to re-invest revenues raised in improving local bus services and making local journeys better, journeys more likely to be taken by the poorest in society.
Tackling the rural dimension
A distance-based charging system charges those who drive further more. And on average, rural residents drive further, for obvious reasons. Research from 2006 indicates that even within rural areas, the likely impact of road user charging will vary significantly. After all, a rural area on the edge of a city has a very different trip profile compared to somewhere in the Scottish Highlands.
Logic dictates that under this mechanism, rural electric vehicle owners will experience higher costs than urban electric vehicle owners, as they are more likely to drive further. What is uncertain is that whether this is considered to be an acceptable cost, given that electric vehicle owners are more likely to higher income people. Some of the lowest income workers in rural areas, such as agricultural workers, are also unlikely to own an electric vehicle.
There is a principle of fairness here, which has often been raised in relation to road user charging more generally. Namely why should rural residents be charged more when congestion and air quality issues are in urban areas. I sense that this argument will fall flat, as existing fuel duties have somewhat established the distance-based principle already (through consumption of fuel), plus no doubt a carve-out for agriculture will be found through farming subsidies.
Having had the chance to think about this plan for the last week or so, I am coming around to support it. Its an imperfect, flawed way to introduce road user pricing. But at the present moment, I think it is the only viable path towards it. If the revenue from this was used to pay for transport improvements, it could be revolutionary.
But my biggest fear is what I alluded to last week. Namely that this is a Treasury solution to a Treasury problem. If that is the case, this could go down as the biggest missed opportunity in transport policy making in the UK in my lifetime. And it would be truly sad to see.
👩🎓From Academia
The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author – they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.
TL:DR - Proposes a novel fluid‑flow analogy for autonomous vehicle path planning that generates smooth, dynamically consistent trajectories in simulated traffic scenarios.
TL:DR - Analyses how digital‑transportation policy adoption across Chinese provinces influences the coupling of urbanization and environmental performance, showing a promoting effect for green economic transition.
TL:DR - Applies a difference‑in‑differences empirical method to estimate the effect of opening a new rail station on through‑passenger demand, finding measurable ridership impacts for existing flows.
TL:DR - Investigates how network‑level accessibility (system connectivity) and station‑level accessibility (local access) differently influence ridership during peak vs off‑peak hours.
TL:DR - Explores how digital‑economy technologies (e‑commerce, logistics optimisation, digital infrastructure) support urban carbon‑emission reduction via circular‑economy and behavioural‑economics frameworks.
😀Positive News
Here are some articles showing that, despite the state of the world, good stuff is still happening in sustainable transport. So get your fix of positivity here.
A year‑long scheme is set to begin from December on Temple Way, introducing new bus lanes on both sides of the road, a two‑way segregated cycle path, upgraded pedestrian and cycle crossings, and improved planting and pavements.
This East Dunbartonshire village’s Main Street is now undergoing a £1.02 m regeneration funded via the Scottish Government Active Travel Infrastructure Fund, delivering traffic calming, new controlled crossings, better footways, and landscaping to support walking, wheeling and cycling.
The REM’s fully automated Deux-Montagnes branch in Montreal is scheduled to open Monday, 17 Nov 2025, adding 14 stations and new interchanges to the metro. It brings high-frequency, zero-emission rail across the North Shore.
Early works on Sutter Street (Gough–Fillmore) reduce general traffic lanes and adjust striping to improve Muni bus operations and safety for people walking.
NYC DOT completed construction of new bus lanes on Hillside Avenue in Queens, a major commuting corridor serving 215k daily riders, speeding up buses and improving reliability.
📺On the (You)Tube
The guys at All The Gear are my guilty watch. In fact, its not a guilty watch. They are funny and do random things - what else is there to like. Last week, they tried converting the back of their tiny van into a British pub. Its the first part of a two parter.
💻 Good Vibes
During the last couple of weeks, I have done a bit of vibe coding, so I can get back into actually coding again. In doing so, I coded up the first version of something I have wanted to do for a while. A website tracking spend by local authorities on transport across the UK.
Its incomplete. In that it only has 20 authorities, and its only on spending data I could quickly get a hold of and code into a website. I’m not even 100% the figures are right. But I would love your feedback on it. Is it something you might find useful? Does it look ok? What improvements would you like to see? Let me know!
📚Random Things
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.
How to make government work (Comment is Freed)
The War on Algorithmic Price Fixing Is Here (Pat Garofalo)
🎶 Musical Out-Tro
Do you know those songs that you remember from your days as a teenager? You don’t know the lyrics, but the tune makes you think of fun times with friends, and feeling happy and care free. Then you listen to the lyrics again and you think “Oh my God, they sang about THAT?!?!?” Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind is like that for me. A word of advice: don’t play this aloud in the office.