Satellites would play a key role in a controversial new plan aimed at relieving congestion on roadways in the United Kingdom. The plan calls for satellite navigation equipment to be installed in cars to track how many miles a vehicle has traveled and at what time of day the vehicle traveled, with the U.K. government taxing the driver based on that information.

According to the published transcripts of a June 9 speech before the Social Market Foundation, U.K. Transportation Secretary Alistair Darling said,

“Our objective is not to put people off the road,” Darling said. “It is to enable us to get more out of the out of the” road infrastructure. Satellite News obtained a transcript of Darling’s speech from the Ministry of Transportation’s Web site.

A feasibility study conducted in 2004 suggests the price per mile range from 2 pence (4 cents) to 1.34 pounds ($2.44) on the busiest roads. Darling said, “The maximum charge would be paid by only half a percent of traffic.”

More importantly, “a road pricing scheme could achieve a 40 percent reduction in congestion with only four percent less cars using the road,” Darling said.

Alistair, in defending the case for a road tax, cited an unnamed U.K. insurance company that is using satellite technology in a pilot “pay-as-you-drive” program, which calculates the cost of insurance premiums on a monthly basis based on the amount of miles driven.

“The benefit is an average reduction in the cost of insurance by about 30 percent,” Alistair said. “The question we need to ask ourselves is how we could use technology like this to deliver national road pricing that would work for the U.K.” Darling noted that satellites are being considered for road pricing “so that we minimize the amount of infrastructure we would have to build at the roadside.” He added that many cars are “already fitted with technology which combines satellite positioning with mobile communications.”

Darling identified a number of issues that still needs to be resolved before such a plan could be implemented, including the specifics related to the design and cost of the system, the cost of the vehicle monitoring equipment and who will pay for it, and how privacy will be respected while the government collects the location data.

“Let’s be clear,” Darling said. “What we need is a system that will ensure the right price is put on the right journey and that motorists see and understand that price, because that will influence the drivers’ behavior.”

–Gregory Twachtman