§ Mr. Jim CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions what assessment he has made of the cost of road congestion to business. [108529]
§ Mr. Hill[holding answer 8 February 2000]: A number of external estimates have been made of the value road users might place on the elimination of congestion from the on road network. The CBI have put this figure at £15 billion, some estimates are lower, but agree that the figure runs into billions every year and is rising.
The Department has made estimates of the amount of time lost on English roads as a result of congestion in 1996 and produced forecasts for 2010 under a number of illustrative scenarios. The results of this work are set out in our report "Tackling Congestion and Pollution", published last month. We will be doing more work in this area as part of our follow up to that report.
233WNeither the external estimates, nor those undertaken by my Department, can be translated directly into assessments of the cost of congestion to business or more widely. This is because they relate only to the benefits road users might derive from reduced delays and take no account of the costs of achieving these reductions. The true costs of road congestion are the net economic and other benefits we forgo if we fail to tackle it.