---
title: Meet COP27 Climate Goals with Road User Charging
url: "https://www.systra.com/uk/expert_insights/meet-climate-goals-with-road-user-charging/"
type: expert_insights
date_published: 2023-02-23
date_modified: 2024-06-05
schema:
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language: en-GB
word_count: 911
reading_time: 5 min
canonical: "https://www.systra.com/uk/expert_insights/meet-climate-goals-with-road-user-charging/"
featured_image: "https://www.systra.com/uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2023/02/meet-cop27-climate-goals-with-road-user-charging.jpg"
type-insight:
  - Sustainability
---

# Meet COP27 Climate Goals with Road User Charging

![motorway sunset](https://www.systra.com/uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2023/02/meet-cop27-climate-goals-with-road-user-charging.jpg)

**Many of us would love to believe that the required reduction in fossil fuel vehicle emissions by 2030 will be delivered by the growing number of electric vehicles (EVs) on our roads. Spoiler alert. Vehicle technology alone will not reduce our emissions quickly enough to meet our greenhouse gas emissions obligation.**

Although the sale of new Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) cars will be banned
from 2030 in the UK, ICE vehicles will still make up around 75% of the car fleet
on the road in 2030. If traffic levels remain at current levels, vehicle
technology will generate a reduction of around 30% in tail-pipe emissions and
not the 50% reduction in these emissions required for typical NetZero
trajectories.

A typical new ICE vehicle purchased today is likely to generate around 15-years’
worth of fossil fuel emissions, and perhaps more if a significant proportion of
vehicle owners resist the transition to EVs. The gap between what technology can
deliver and what is required to meet NetZero commitments will therefore have to
be filled by an unprecedented reduction in the use of private vehicles.

![Highway,Traffic,In,Sunset](https://www.systra.com/uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2023/06/road-user-charging-net-zero-edited-scaled.jpg)

This reduction will require significant investment in sustainable transport
alternatives, but carrots alone will not be sufficient to deliver the required
change in travel behaviour. Instead, we need to significantly increase the cost
of private car use, particularly the use of ICE vehicles, to help tip the
balance towards sustainable modes, including increased car sharing.

If these increased car costs can be targeted at high-emission vehicles, then
that will be a bonus as it will help accelerate the transition to lower emission
vehicles. However, the main focus of increasing the cost of car use should be to
reduce the overall frequency and length of car trips. Car drivers will then need
to choose between making fewer and shorter car trips, switch to alternative
modes, or buy and use lower emission vehicles.

Although the vast majority of current car kms do not have a realistic
sustainable-mode alternative, this does not mean that we have to wait until we
have a public transport network that can compare with the convenience of private
car use for every journey before increasing car costs. Instead, we need to
increase the cost of all fossil-fuelled car use and improve the sustainable
modes where these can provide cost-effective and attractive alternatives to car
use – typically within urban areas and connecting adjacent high-density
settlements.

We can and should reprioritise road space to create high frequency public
transport and active travel mode corridors, and ‘people-first’ town centres. We
should also use parking controls to encourage a shift away from using private
cars to access town and city centres, and encourage employers to reduce
car-commuting (and their associated ‘Scope 3’ emissions) by using workplace
parking levies and other incentives for their workers to use sustainable
alternatives (including working from home) where possible.

A less-urgent but still important problem is the reduction in the Government’s
revenue from the fuel duty paid on fossil fuel – petrol and diesel. As more and
more vehicle owners switch from ICE to electric vehicles, this will create a
large black hole in the Government’s coffers, making it harder to fund
sustainable transport alternatives (and everything else that fuel duty currently
helps pay for).

### So, can we tackle both of these problems simultaneously?

The answer could be distance-based road user charging applied to all vehicles
using the road network. Road user charging will have to include EVs, to ensure
they pay their fair share of the cost of maintaining our road network. However,
it is feasible to collect revenue via a distance-based road user charge with
different tariffs for ICE and EV vehicles to reflect their different greenhouse
gas emissions per kilometre. Furthermore, the cost per km could be adjusted to
reflect the availability of alternatives, based on a combination of urban and
rural classification, remoteness, and level of public transport provision at the
location of the registered vehicles, though care is needed to avoid creating too
much ‘creative’ registration of vehicles.

The need for rapid behaviour change to deliver challenging Net Zero trajectories
between now and 2030 suggests that we shouldn’t wait for a ‘deluxe’ version of
road-user charging, based on vehicle tracking and telematics. Instead, road-user
charging could start with a simple annual check of every vehicle’s odometer to
calculate a cost as part of the vehicle’s annual car tax. The per km tariff can
be determined by the CO2/km rating of the vehicle, and the postcode of the
vehicle’s registered address. It would also be possible for the per km tariff to
increase with the annual mileage of the vehicle in order to reward low mileage
drivers, but I’d advise against this due to the risk that it would lead to
increased car ownership, as affluent vehicle owners buy extra vehicles to take
advantage of the lower tariffs.

A national policy on road-user charging, informed by a clear understanding of
where we are trying to get to (and why), and an explanation of why this requires
significant road-user charging, may be the catalyst required to help deliver a
charging scheme for the wholesale emission reduction required to meet our
Climate Emergency.

_Originally published on TransportXtra_

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