§ Mrs. Dunwoodyasked the Secretary of State for Transport if he will publish in the Official Report a table, showing the estimates made in 1960 for traffic on (a) motorways and (b) trunk roads (distinguishing between car, light van, lorries under 28 tons and over 28 tons) in respect of the years (i) 1970, (ii) 1975, (iii) 1980, (iv) 1985, (v) 1990 and (vi) 2000; what were the actual outturn traffic levels for (1) 1970, (2)1975 and (3) 1980; and what are the latest projections for 1985, 1990 and 2000, expressing those traffic levels in vehicle/kilometres, or some multiple thereof.
§ Mr. RidleyRecords are not held centrally of any estimates of future traffic made in 1960, and searching for them would incur disproportionate cost. Some forecasts of traffic were made in the early 1960s at the then Road Research Laboratory, but these were in the nature of research and not necessarily the policy of the then Ministry of Transport.
The Ministry's 1968 booklet "Advisory Manual on Traffic Prediction for Rural Roads" forecast traffic for all rural roads, and for all traffic, equated to passenger car units. From a 1960 base, it predicted these units to grow by 83 per cent. to 1970, 129 per cent. to 1975, 167 per cent. to 1980, 198 per cent. to 1985, 223 per cent. to 1990 and 265 per cent. to 2000.
The actual outturn traffic, in billion vehicle kilometres was as shown in the following table.
them, in the Department's national road traffic forecasts, 1984. They are shown in the following table, expressed in billion vehicle kilometres.
111W
1985 1990 2000 Low High Low High Low High Cars and taxis 227 236 249 277 271 331 Light vans 22.3 22.8 23.3 24.6 25.0 29.4 Heavy goods vehicles —under 25 tonnes GVW 13.3 13.7 13.0 14.0 12.3 14.2 —over 25 tonnes GVW 6.3 6.5 6.6 7.1 7.3 8.4 Notes:
GVW is gross vehicle weight.
The forecasts for heavy goods vehicles are broken at 25 tonnes GVW