ABSTRACT
There are approximately 200,000 miles of road in Great Britain; 10,000 miles of this, constituting the national system of through routes is designated as 'departmental' road, and is the direct financial responsibility of central government. In England, the responsibility for trunk roads is shared by Headquarters of the Department of the Environment, the Divisional Road Engineers and the Regional Road Construction Units. With very few minor exceptions, no comparable direct charges are made for the use of road track. Instead, road users pay taxes—vehicle licence duty, fuel tax and purchase tax on new vehicles. Following the terminology of the Road Track Costs Report, road costs may be grouped into three categories: user costs, public costs and community costs. Revenue from road users is derived principally from three sources—fuel tax, vehicle excise duty and VAT. As well as aiming for a suitable relationship between total costs and total revenue, also need in theory to develop suitable charging structure for different routes.
