THE government’s most senior transport adviser is set to round on Alistair Darling, the transport secretary, for failing to meet key policy targets.

Professor David Begg, chairman of the government’s Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT), will also attack Darling for refusing to come off the fence in favour of road tolls to tackle rising traffic levels. He is expected to demand a “fundamental review” of the government’s ambiguous stand on charging motorists for road use in a report due out next month.

He will argue that a decision on introducing charges across the country should not be delayed until 2006, when a Europe-wide scheme targeting lorries will come into force. Begg believes the climate is now right for ministers to make up their minds following the success of the congestion charging scheme in central London.

The report will highlight the fact that far from cutting congestion levels, the government is expecting traffic to increase by up to 20% by 2010. Other targets, such as a pledge to expand rail travel by 50%, are also unlikely to be met.

Begg’s intervention comes at a time when Gordon Brown, the chancellor, is thought to have been won over to congestion charging because of the large revenues it could potentially generate for the Treasury.

Officially the government has said it will not consider widespread road pricing before 2010. But Brown, also running out of patience with the railways, which are costing more than £3 billion a year in subsidies, is likely to put a favourable case to Tony Blair. Although the prime minister has hinted that road charging might be beneficial, he has been reluctant to commit himself because of its possible unpopularity.

Begg is known to favour a “pay-as-you-go” system of road pricing, in which all cars would be fitted with a satellite tracking meter. Tariffs would vary according to the type of road used and the time of day. CfIT believes charges should be counterbalanced by reducing fuel duty and road tax.

Stephen Joseph, a CfIT member and director of Transport 2000, an environmental lobby group, said: “We have a stark choice between increasing congestion and some form of demand management, and that’s not a message the government wants publicised.”

Earlier this month it emerged that Darling had brought forward a review of CfIT’s role by six months amid speculation that the government — annoyed by past criticism from the commission — was planning to dump Begg or “neutralise” him.

In what some interpreted as a veiled threat to Begg, the transport secretary said that the review would “consider the extent to which these bodies remain necessary to the delivery of government policy”.

In December last year Darling was forced to admit that a pledge to reduce congestion by 6% by 2010, the central plank of the government’s 10-year transport plan, would not be met. New forecasts indicated that traffic levels were likely to rise by 11%-20% over the decade. Darling also had to backtrack on a target to increase rail travel by 50% after it emerged that growth between 2000 and 2002 was only 2.6%.

Begg declined to discuss his findings last week but said: “This report is going to be objective and robust, and we’ll say what we need to say to fulfil our remit.”

• Darling unveiled plans yesterday to allow drivers to use motorway hard shoulders to ease congestion. A pilot scheme that will see additional lanes opened up at peak times on the M42 in the Midlands will begin next year and the idea could be repeated on parts of the M25 around London and the M6 in the northwest.

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