§ Chris GraylingTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what recent assessment he has made of the impact of fuel taxes on road and rail passenger usage. [28571]
§ Mr. SpellarThe Department's latest assessment of the impact of changes in the cost of fuel, including taxes, on road use is given in Annex C of "Modelling using the National Road Traffic Forecasting framework for 'Tackling Congestion and Pollution' and 'Transport 2010: The 10-Year Plan'—Technical Report".
In this assessment, the long run elasticity of car use with respect to fuel cost per car kilometre is 0.23. This means, for example, that an increase (decrease) in fuel cost per car kilometre of 10 per cent, would lead to a 2.3 per cent, decrease (increase) in car kilometres.
As announced in the 10-Year Plan, the Department is developing its multi-modal modelling capability. This will enable estimates to be made of the impact on rail passenger usage of changes to fuel taxation.