Motorists will have to pay tolls of up to £1.30 a mile to reduce congestion but will also benefit from hundreds of miles of new motorway lanes, according to a report commissioned by the Government on the future of Britain’s transport system.

Ministers should no longer have the final say on major transport projects. The decisions on whether to approve new runways, roads and rail lines should be taken by a new independent planning commission, the report says.

Sir Rod Eddington, the former chief executive of British Airways who was appointed to write the report by the Treasury and Department for Transport, calls for modest enhancements to the existing network rather than investing tens of billions of pounds in new high-speed rail lines and other grand schemes.

He supports government plans to hold trials for congestion charging in regional cities and echoes the views of ministers by proposing that all drivers should pay by the mile for road use in ten years’ time.

Speaking to The Times, he said: “There is no alternative to road pricing. It is an economic no-brainer.”

He accepted that many people would pay more to drive at peak times because they would be unable to switch to public transport or travel off-peak.

“If you choose to use a facility at peak time you pay a peak price — it’s the same if you check into a hotel, go the theatre or catch a plane.”

The report concludes that nationwide congestion charging, known as road-pricing, would reduce but not eliminate the need for more roads. “Even with road pricing, there is an economic case for additional inter-urban road infrastructure.” It says that without road-pricing Britain would need between 2,900 and 3,350 extra lane kilometres (1,800 and 2,500 miles) of motorways and principal A roads between 2015 and 2025.

If the most advanced form of road-pricing were introduced nationally, with the price varying according to time of day and distance, the total length required would fall to 500 to 850 lane kilometres.

The report accepts that the actual number is likely to lie between the two sets of figures because “in reality only a much simpler road-pricing scheme could be introduced”.

The report says that the alternative to road-pricing is “an unattractive combination of significantly lower population and economic growth; lower car-driver licence holding; fewer trips per person and shorter commuting trip lengths”.

The main criticisms are of the slow pace of the planning system and the failure of the Department for Transport to take a balanced view of all modes of transport.

Sir Rod says that ministers should make clear statements of strategic objectives but transfer key powers to a new independent commission, which would take the final decision on specific schemes.

He says that planning inquiries should be conducted on an inquisitorial, rather than an adversarial, basis and likened the idea of appointing the commission to the Government’s creation of an independent committee to set interest rates.

Sir Rod said that he was confident, after conversations with Gordon Brown, that the Chancellor would support his recommendations: “I think he will take the bull by the horns,” he told The Times.

Mr Brown will be relieved that Sir Rod plays down the idea of expensive schemes. The report recommends: “Do not be seduced by ‘grand projects’ with speculative returns.”

It says that a North-South high-speed rail link, which Labour pledged to consider in its election manifesto last year, would have limited environmental benefits.

The report also calculates that, even if all air passengers between London and Scotland travelled by rail, carbon emissions in Britain would fall by only 0.2 per cent.

But Graham Birse of Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce argued that high-speed railways had been a success in Europe and Japan. “It is an investment which can right the disadvantages of distance from market suffered by businesses the further north you go,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Executive said that ministers would be looking with interest at the report. She said: “We will consider his report and intend to publish our own long-term national transport strategy next week.”

A team of civil servants and academics considered 200 transport schemes and found that the greatest benefits would result from those costing less than £1 billion each.

Much of the report focuses on regional cities and, after presenting the report in London yesterday morning, Sir Rod travelled to Birmingham and Manchester to make clear that he had considered their needs.

The DfT said it would consider the report carefully.

Chris Grayling, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said: “This is the eighth major transport report in the past nine years, and yet it tells us nothing new about what we need to do to meet the growing problems on our transport system.”

The man behind the report

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