Sir Sadiq Khan’s announcement of a £3 hike in the London congestion charge to £18 a day from 2 January 2, coupled with reduced discounts for cleaner vehicles – unwelcome to some, while, for others, not going far enough – has brought a new focus on the continuing problems of congestion and traffic management in the city.
The charge was famously introduced by the capital’s first Mayor, Ken Livingstone, in 2003 to better manage central London’s clogged streets, which were increasingly damaging the city economy, delaying buses and deterring walking and cycling. It was controversial, opposed even by the Blair government, which had included the power to charge road users when it set up the new mayoralty.
But the measure had an immediate impact. After 12 months, traffic speeds were up, congestion was down by 30 per cent, and bus ridership in the zone, boosted by service improvements, was up by a third. Importantly, as transport charity Sustrans said on the charge’s 20th anniversary, it showed “we don’t just need to accept congestion, pollution, and roads dominated by traffic as the inevitable consequence of modern life”.
That impact has diminished over time. Traffic speeds are down, eroding the benefit for those paying the charge as well as for bus users. Despite there being fewer vehicles in the zone, congestion is increasing – to the extent that, in last year’s “Global Traffic scorecard” produced by traffic analysts INRIX, London was named the most congested city in Europe, at an estimated cost to the capital’s economy of £3.85 billion.
There are a number of causes. As vehicle numbers have reduced, the road space allocated to them has also been reduced, in favour of bus lanes, cycleways and pedestrians. There are more traffic lights, more roadworks and more private hire vehicles. Larger SUV-style cars having difficulties negotiating the central streets are also in the frame.
That’s the context for the Mayor’s latest intervention, to ensure the charge “stays fit for purpose”. Doing nothing, he said, would see around 2,200 more vehicles in the congestion charging zone on an average weekday next year.
The growth in the number of electric vehicles (EVs), currently exempt from the charge, is a significant factor. There were some 20,000 EVs in the zone when the discount was introduced in 2019. Now, there are more than 116,000, close to 20 per cent of the total – an increase threatening to undermine the scheme’s main objective of tackling congestion.
It’s a tricky balancing act, encouraging the switch to cleaner vehicles while restraining overall numbers. The current discount was flagged from the start as lasting only to the end of 2025, and last year the Mayor remained bullish – retaining it would simply encourage more vehicles into the zone, “contributing to worsening traffic and congestion”, he told the London Assembly.
But a vocal backlash during the consultation on the new scheme seems to have prompted a climb-down. Khan will now phase out the discount rather than axing it in one go, initially to 25 per cent for cars and 50 per cent for vans and lorries, with a further 50 per cent reduction in 2030.
Business groups wanted it retained, while some green campaigners wanted it gone, but Khan may, for now, have found a sweet spot: the consultation showed 66 per cent of respondents supporting action to reduce traffic and congestion in central London, and 58 per cent backing steps to encourage the use of zero emission vehicles in the zone.
Where does this leave Khan’s sustainable transport target of 80 per cent of all trips in London to be made on foot, by cycle or by public transport by 2041? And his net zero by 2030 target, requiring a 27 per cent reduction in car vehicle kilometres travelled by that date?
The impact of the new charging regime looks as if it will be a relatively small 2,200 fewer vehicles a day in 2026, a two per cent reduction, going up to 2,600 when the second cut in the cleaner vehicle discount kicks in, but declining to approximately 1,700 fewer by 2035, as the number of EVs goes up.
Experts quizzed recently at the London Assembly transport committee suggested it was time to go beyond the central zone, where intervention might be approaching its peak, and look to the wider city, where car numbers are actually increasing. So is it time to extend road user charging?
It’s not a new idea of course. It can be traced at least as far back as the government’s Smeed Report in 1964, with various schemes proposed since then, in the capital and more widely. But Livingstone’s congestion charge has to date been the only significant scheme to surmount the hurdle of public opposition.
Recent polling for the Centre for London think tank suggests the mood may be changing, with almost half of Londoners saying they would choose public transport over driving if fares were lower, a fifth saying increased road charges would encourage them to switch, and some 36 per cent now backing a “pay per mile” charge.
“It is well time to get this sort of discussion underway,” professor David Metz for University College London told the assembly. “It is all politically quite difficult but that is, I think, where you have to go if you are talking seriously about demand management.”
As with the original congestion charge, which was accompanied by major improvements to bus services, expanding public transport networks across the city might seal the deal. All eyes on the upcoming budget then, with government support for the Bakerloo Line extension, the Docklands Light Railway extension and the West London Orbital rail like high on the capital’s wish list.
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Where I live bus routes and numbers of buses have been cut a lot. Bus stops have been moved beyond the reach of many less able residents. There are still too many non-electric vehicles on the roads here, including plenty of deliveries vehicles servicing businesses and building sites (there are always new buildings and major refurbishments going on). It is for sure much too early to start congestion-charging for electric vehicles. There are far far too few of them on the roads here.
The Mayor plans to shift traffic from the shopping street into the residential areas just off it. Good for those visitors who are here for a few hours only, bad for the adults and children who live here. He has still has not made the congestion charge 24/7, which would ensure that residents are not plagued by the noise and air pollution of nocturnal deliveries and servicing. Noise and air pollution have an equal impact on human health, and both cause disease and death. Maybe 24/7 congestion charging would deter a few of the supercar racers who rev and roar and backfire their unsilenced engines all evening and night in the West End and nearby areas.
I’m sick of the continued drumbeat to keep adding taxes.
This biased article fails to recognise some vital points.
The volume of traffic on London’s roads has been the same for 3 decades at around 20 bn vehicle km/ yr. But during that time average speeds have become so slow that London is the most congested city in Europe. The cause… the Mayor’s own traffic policies, with LTNs, bike lanes, etc, etc.
When congestion charging came in, the public were conned about its success. Tfl implemented three crucial measures to do this. It timed the introduction at the moment of greatest traffic drop, the start of spring half term. It implemented a ban on roadworks to coincide with the launch; and it altered back what had been very disruptive phasing of various strategically placed traffic lights.
The Mayor now makes £1 bn a year from taxing and fining motorists and the latest move on congestion charging is just another tax grab justified yet again with bogus green arguments.
Hello. There is a serious discussion to be had about road space allocation, congestion and policy. Charles’s article contributes to that. It isn’t “biased”. It accurately reports and carefully analyses some recent developments, including diminishing effects of the C-charge caused by issues you mention. Traffic volumes in central London fell after the Congestion Charge was introduced, which was, I believe, the point of it. However, there is a valid discussion about how it should evolve. Nobody, including motorists, gains from high levels of congestion.
Since one of the major intents of the charge is to reduce pollution, I think the charge should be reduced again once EV usage/population in the zone (as measured by the charging system and other sources) achieves a significant majority (75% say).
Where some focus is needed is mileage created by private hire vehicles (Uber etc), and accelerating a per mileage charge to discourage non-productive mileage (better algorithms and processes) would be helpful. The large private hire companies should be compelled to share their vehicle tracking to facilitate this.
Achieving modal shift via reduction of basic fares is a red herring, with surveyed population leading the surveyors on into an sub-optimal outcome (probably due to poor survey question setting).
What there needs to be is a simplification of travel: extending Hopper concept so that you pay one fixed charge for a multi-modal journey (including bike and bus/tram with tube/train), making payment even easier (Project Oval helps), and creating trust that passenger will pay a fair price (Project Oval doesn’t help enough, too many instances where a paper train ticket is still cheaper).
Travelling as a family does need to be cheaper (11-19 should not have to pay for tubes/trains if they have a zip card). Service improvements also.