BEATING road congestion is a major target for the UK freight industry.

The delays and unreliability caused by the problem costs UK industry, and thus the consumer, around £20 billion a year. An astonishing sum.

From 2006 all goods vehicles will be operating on a distance tax basis - satellite tracking will charge lorry operators a mileage rate related to the road they are on, the type of vehicle, the time of day and the operating environment.

Vehicle excise duty and fuel duty will need to be reduced to meet the Government's repeated promise that there will be no net increase in the overall tax bill.

The transport industry has welcomed this prospect. Together with some strategic road building and improved public transport, we are convinced that some form of roads pricing is one of the measures needed to help manage congestion.

But lorries are not the primary cause of congestion - there are 55 cars on the road for every lorry. Something must be done or in five or ten years time or none of us will be able to move on the road in our cars, and road freight transport will be paralysed, to the detriment of the economy and the consumer.

Common sense says some means of road pricing will eventually apply to cars and that such a policy will eventually be welcomed and recognised not as anti-motorist but as pro-movement.

Heather Crocker,

Regional Director,

Freight Transport Association,

Horsforth, Leeds.

Updated: 10:32 Thursday, June 27, 2002