Fears Sadiq Khan will bring in pay-per-mile road taxes after spending £3m on project
Sadiq Khan spent £3 million of taxpayers’ money planning a pay-per-mile road charging system, amid fears he could bring the scheme in if he is re-elected.
Transport officials were working on a driver charging project as recently as January, even though the Mayor of London has denied he would bring in pay-per-mile taxes, a freedom of information (FOI) request reveals.
Codenamed Future RUC, the project could replace current London driving fees with “sophisticated technology” that bills motorists for driving in the capital.
Future RUC was created to “explore the potential for a ‘smart road user charging’ scheme”, according to Transport for London (TfL) documents revealed under FOI laws.
It could eventually replace charges such as the low emission zone, ultra low emission zone (Ulez) and the congestion charge.
Drivers of older and more polluting vehicles must pay £12.50 a day to drive in London under the Ulez rules, on top of the £15-a-day congestion charge.
Traffic worse since Ulez
It comes after research by satellite navigation company TomTom found traffic congestion in the capital has increased since Ulez was introduced, and found London is now the slowest city to drive through in the world.
Driving 10km (6.2 miles) across the capital takes more than 37 minutes, up from 36 minutes last year, with the satnav company saying that London motorists waste an average of 148 hours in rush-hour congestion every year.
The world’s next slowest city, Dublin, can be crossed in 29 minutes - while covering the same distance in Turin, featured as an example of heavy traffic congestion in Michael Caine’s classic 1969 film The Italian Job - takes just 25 minutes according to TomTom data.
Andy Marchant, a traffic expert at TomTom, said that CO2 emissions in London had increased as a result, saying: “Improved traffic management is needed alongside vital public programmes like Ulez.
News of the Future RUC project comes as Mr Khan seeks re-election for an unprecedented third term as London mayor on May 2.
Plot to ‘hammer’ drivers
Susan Hall, the Conservative mayoral candidate, accused her Labour rival of plotting to “hammer” drivers after the election with new pay-per-mile taxes.
“It is outrageous that he has splurged £3 million building a prototype to tax drivers by the mile and now expects us to believe he won’t use it,” said Ms Hall.
“Sadiq won’t listen, which is why he plans to bring in pay per mile, so he can hammer drivers as soon as his Ulez cash runs dry.”
Ms Hall added: “I am listening to Londoners. I will scrap the Ulez expansion on day one and chuck Sadiq Khan’s pay-per-mile prototype in the bin.”
Polling earlier this month put Mr Khan around 18 points ahead of Ms Hall.
In 2022, Mr Khan said he was pushing TfL to start planning for pay-per-mile charging. Following a public backlash, he U-turned on the plans last year.
Conservatives at City Hall believe his promises not to introduce pay-per-mile charging are insincere.
Three key TfL contracts for the technology and staff powering London’s three driver charging schemes expire in September 2026.
City Hall Tories claim that Future RUC is not only paving the way to replace those schemes, but is meant to usher in pay-per-mile taxes at the same time.
Pay-per-mile taxes are controversial because they disproportionately hit Londoners who need to drive long distances every day.
Those affected include people commuting to the outer reaches of the capital and those who rely on driving for their jobs, such as builders and other tradesmen.
Although the Future RUC scheme has now closed according to TfL, its existence as recently as January calls into question Mr Khan’s previous denials that he intends to bring in pay-per-mile road use taxes.
He told the London Assembly in September 2023: “As long as I am mayor, we’re not going to have pay-per-mile.”
A spokesman for Mr Khan’s mayoral election campaign said: “Sadiq has repeatedly and categorically ruled out pay-per-mile for as long as he is mayor.
“It will not be introduced in London, despite misleading statements from the Tories saying otherwise.”
Uses more sophisticated technology
In a FOI response seen by The Telegraph, TfL said: “The Future RUC project referred to in the Programmes and Investment Committee paper from September 2022 was initiated to explore the potential for a ‘smart road user charging’ scheme that could potentially replace existing charges, such as the congestion charge, low emission zone, and ultra low emission zone with a single RUC scheme that uses more sophisticated technology to make it as simple and fair as possible for Londoners.”
A TfL spokesman said: “Money spent has informed work to bring our existing outsourced schemes, the congestion charge, Ulez and the low emission zone, in-house when the contract expires in 2026. The aim of bringing these schemes in-house is to achieve better value for money. There are no other plans in development.”
In February, The Telegraph revealed that Mr Khan had ordered £150 million to be spent on a “secret” project capable of enforcing a pay-per-mile tax.
The scheme, called Project Detroit, was set up by TfL to create a “more sophisticated… new core technology platform for road-user charging”.
A series of FOI requests showed that 157 staff were working solely on the scheme, with some engineers being paid more than £100,000 a year.
In total £21 million has already been spent on Project Detroit, which started in 2021, but the “platform has an estimated final cost of between £130 million to £150 million”.
