Transport Solutions - A five point action plan from the FTA
July 16, 2003

The Freight Transport Association says that industry needs a high quality, reliable transport infrastructure if the UK is to remain competitive and to generate growth appropriate to our status as the world’s fourth largest economy. Increasing personal mobility and a doubling of the economy since 1970, combined with inadequate investment in our transport infrastructure, has led to rising traffic levels on road and rail resulting in longer journey times and falling reliability - both factors critical to industrial performance.

FTA, which represents operators of over 200,000 goods vehicles, almost half the UK fleet, plus companies which consign over 90 per cent of the goods moved by rail, has now produced Transport Solutions - a plan describing the key activities required to address the freight transport industry’s concerns and which the government has a key role in delivering.

The FTA report says that the government must:

• Plan for road user charging for all vehicles to balance traffic demand with roads supply
• Take control of roads delivery - both improving current and supplying new roads - and managing highway performance to maximise safe capacity
• Invest in rail freight as a congestion bypass for industry
• Deliver the short-term fixables to improve capacity and deliver confidence in the long-term - better driver information, improved incident management, improvements at junctions and inter-sections and other pinchpoints, determine alternative routes for motorway closures etc
• Establish extra funding for transport infrastructure - FTA says that a greater proportion of the £41 billion paid in tax by road users should be invested to improve reliability and service levels. At present less than 25p in every £1 collected from road users is re-invested in transport and only 10p in roads.

FTA says that industry’s investment in supply chains during the next ten years will be over £850 billion, many times higher than the government’s own investment. However, industry needs to plan with certainly that road and rail networks will perform efficiently. Adoption of FTA’s five action points would provide a firm foundation.

Last updated: Wed Jul 21 14:20:08 2004