Congestion system 'outdated lunacy'

Ken Livingstone's controversial congestion charging plan suffered its biggest jolt yet today as a highly authoritative study attacked it as "lunacy".

The system chosen for London has already been rejected by other world capitals as outdated, it warned.

The study - by influential international strategy consultants Roland Berger - claimed that London was rushing into a system that would ultimately damage public transport and fail to curb congestion. The fatal flaw in the scheme, due to be launched in 2003, is that it is so inflexible it will levy only one basic charge over a rigidly defined area - pushing congestion from the centre to other parts of the capital.

It also means London will lose £2.5 billion that a better scheme could have generated over 10 years to modernise the Tube and the buses, says the study. It says that the scheme, backed by Transport for London, should be delayed as it would also impose "unfair" charges on millions of motorists.

The AA said: "We already know that public transport will not be ready in time. Now this confirms what many experts know: this scheme is too far advanced for its time."

The study shows that the Mayor's system will not be "especially difficult or expensive" to install. But it will tie London to a lumbering system-that other cities across Britain will be forced to duplicate.

Dennis Hayter, associate partner at Roland Berger, said: "We now have a golden opportunity to find a solution that will improve conditions for motorists, that is fair and that will allow us to invest properly in our public transport systems. It is immensely depressing to think that city authorities might choose the easy option rather than the best one."

The study says the system proposed for London has been rejected by "most other countries" including Trondheim in Norway, Singapore and New Zealand. It relies on Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras to check registration numbers against a list of owners who have paid the £5 daily charge. Its deadly flaw is the flat charge. Once motorists have paid they will continue to flood central London.

The study proposes instead proven "smart" satellite-based tracking - Vehicle Positioning System technology - using in-car receivers handed free to around one million motorists. This would cost less than installing the ANPR network.

Each car's journey would be plotted automatically. The computer would "know" when a vehicle enters the charging zone and automatically debit a pre-paid account, encouraging the driver to restrict time spent "in zone" and slashing congestion. The increased flexibility means cordoned-off areas could be changed depending on circumstances, giving the capital an infinitely adaptable system.

Roland Berger says London must now reconsider before it is too late.

The study claims that by enforcing a varying scale of charges and by having two zones, TfL could generate an extra £830 million for public transport in the first 10 years over the £200 million per annum the current scheme will struggle to raise. With three graduated zones and higher costs at the very centre an extra £2.5 billion would be generated for Tube and buses.

TfL officials admitted that while they would have liked a more sophisticated system it was more important to launch a "low tech" system quickly. A spokesman said: "For every week that we do not have congestion charging we lose £2m in economic benefits. A high-tech system would be welcomed but it would take longer to set up and demand a lot more infrastructure. We would be interested to see anything that suggests this could be done cheaply."