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The UK’s motorway network has been ranked bottom of the EU–27 based on the number of vehicles per motorway mile. The findings have been published in the annual compilation of road statistics by the Road Users’ Alliance (RUA).

Director Tim Green stated that, like its European neighbours, the UK’s economy is dependent on its road network.

“Motorways carry 92% of our passenger traffic and 88% of our freight and despite vastly superior rail infrastructure similar figures still prevail in Europe, where only 7% of passengers travel by rail,” he said.

“Yet with relatively low car ownership and the worst congestion in Europe, we continue to pursue the notion that congestion charging and public transport can resolve our transport problems.”

Britain’s motorway network:-

More cars per motorway mile than any EU nation.
23rd by ratio of motorway length to GDP, behind Lithuania and Poland.
19th by people per motorway mile, just ahead of Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
14th by density, just ahead of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania.

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Companies are being advised to ensure they have a rigid drug and drink policy in place before the festive season gets underway. Also, companies that already have a policy should remind their drivers of the risks of drink-driving and of the rising number of morning after convictions.

Every year approximately 90,000 motorists are convicted of driving with excess alcohol in their blood.

Your Fleet Manager is being advised that just getting drivers to agree to a company policy on not drinking and driving does not guarantee compliance.

According to Avoid Training and Education, it’s not enough to stress ‘don’t drink & drive’, drivers need to also know for definite when they will be alcohol-free the next day to be safe to drive.

Extended licensing hours have pushed drinking later into the night and early hours which, together with the inevitable increase in consumption, has increased morning-after convictions.

As a result, morning after offences have continued to rise – now almost one-in-five convictions are on the way to or at work, often in a firm’s vehicle.

In addition, recent changes in law and procedures have allowed police to carry out field impairment tests to determine whether there is evidence of impairment through drug use.

The rollout of field impairment testing will also impact on drink driving, as police concentrate their new expertise towards drink drivers.

With appropriate training, these tests can be carried out by fleet managers and key HR staff, enabling them to check employees suspected of being impaired in the workplace.

Having established impairment, a company drugs and alcohol policy will determine what happens next.

As I’m sure you will have noticed, fuel prices are currently running at all time record highs and average prices have burst through the £1-a-litre barrier which, for any business running vehicles, is a large financial hit to absorb.

But why, exactly, is fuel so expensive right now?

The cost of fuel is made up of the base cost of the product, the VAT and the fuel duty imposed by the Government – a sizeable amount.

Nick Staples, Managing Director of leading Fuel Card supplier Forecourt Fuels Ltd, offered the following explaination:-

“One of the biggest challenges we face as consumers in the UK is that we have the highest duty rates in Europe, particularly on diesel. Generally, we have the highest overall price for diesel in Europe, although not always on unleaded petrol. Most other countries differentiate in the level of duty between unleaded and diesel, whereas the UK doesn’t.”

OIL PRICES

Various factors have sent the price of fuel rocketing recently, not least the cost of oil from which diesel and petrol are made.

From the late 1980’s (apart from a brief blip during the first Gulf War), the price of oil stayed fairly consistent at about $25-$30 a barrel.

But in 2003 the prices started to escalate, thanks to the second Gulf War and increased demand from developing economies such as China and India.

“In 2005 we experienced Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, terrorism and concern over Iran’s nuclear programme,” Mr Staples explains.

“There were a whole host of factors that conspired to escalate prices over a two to three year period.”

This year prices came down in January to a fairly reasonable level – around $55 a barrel.

But during the year, this price has escalated, mostly due to tight supply market.

“That mirrored the conditions in 2006,” Mr Staples says.

“The difference this year is that since September prices have escalated again, while in 2006 they slowed down.

“The market has been incredibly tight in supply terms which has resulted in a large price rise.”

A key problem is that refineries, where oil is converted to fuel, are stretched.

“Refinery capacity is still an issue and there are concerns over the long-term supply and demand balance in the crude oil market,” says Mr Staples.

“There is a fairly limited capacity spare to increase the level of crude in the market if there was supply disruption.”

While US house prices do not seem to have a huge amount to do with UK fuel prices, the credit problems in the States have definitely had a direct impact.

“There’s been a lot of speculation in the oil market which has been compounded by the credit situation in the US,” Mr Staples says.

“A lot of money that would normally have gone into equity markets has gone into commodities.”

STOCK WORRIES

All the main industrial countries retain stocks of crude oil and fuel to get them through emergencies. But right now, stocks in the US are at their lowest level for the past five years.

“The oil stocks are running at a lower level than the market would ideally like” says Mr Staples

“Eventually, the Government will have to return into the market to replenish its stock levels, but will be reluctant to do so while the price is so high”.

“However, keeping low stock levels maintains the prices so it’s a vicious circle.”

THE FUTURE

So, what is the outcome of this situation?

“We’re at an unusually high price going into the winter,” Mr Staples explains.

“If there’s a very cold winter that will put even further pressure on the market.”

Not all the news is bad however – more problems for America could mean good news for UK consumers at the pumps.

“There is speculation that the US economy might struggle in the first half of 2008,” Mr Staples says.

“If that reduces US demand it will take some pressure out of the market.

“Also, if we have a good winter, that will relieve some of the pressure on heating oil and also help.”

So it’s not all doom and gloom?

“Extra capacity is due to come online in 2008, although it’s unlikely to make an impact until later in the year.”

Fuel duty rose by 2p per litre in October and further increases are planned next year.

“We would hope the Chancellor will keep those increases under review and assess market conditions at the time before making a decision,” Mr Staples adds.

“If prices are very high it may not be great timing to make further duty increases.

“We already have extremely high rates of fuel duty and it’s an additional cost that businesses will have no choice but to pass on wherever possible.”

Whatever happens as we go into 2008, don’t expect to see pump prices fall in the immediate future.

“Diesel prices in particular will remain comfortably over the £1 per litre mark until the turn of the year at least” Mr Staples says.

“We’re in a high price market at the moment and it’s difficult to see where the any price fall will come from.”

The RAC Foundations Director Edmund King, revealed on Thursday 15th November at the Transport Times conference in London that Motorways in the UK are the most congested in the European Union.

The new report from the Road Users’ Alliance reveals that Britain has more cars per motorway mile than any EU-25 nation.

It also reveals that rather than the UK network competing against France or Germany, it is more in line with Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary.

In his presentation, King also highlighted the fact that the UK has lower car ownership rates than many European nations but worse congestion.

He made the case for urgent road improvements, coupled with the introduction of a voluntary road pricing system based on a pilot in Oregon, USA.

Mr King said: “Roads in the UK are essential for 92% of passenger traffic and 88% of our freight. This reliance on the road network will continue even if public transport is radically improved.

“We need road improvements but we also need to question when and where we travel.

“Research findings from a pilot in Oregon show that even a voluntary system of road pricing where drivers pay per mile but receive a discount on the cost of fuel has lead to a reduction in peak period traffic of 20%.

“Even if only10% of drivers opted to pay for their motoring in this way it could have a significant effect in reducing traffic congestion.”

The number of motorists who put the wrong fuel in their car has doubled over the last ten years. It is estimated that over 150,000 drivers misfuel each year – one every three and a half minutes, which generates around 7.5 million litres of contaminated fuel.

Responding to these figures, the AA has launched a national service – AA Fuel Assist – a roadside service that drains, flushes and replenishes vehicle fuel systems on the spot.

The AA is investing approximately £1.7 million in AA Fuel Assist, which retrieves the contaminated fuel and ensures that it is recycled through a waste management company.

Fuel retailers have been warned it could take a month before the Coryton Oil Refinery recovers to producing its full capacity after a fire at the site last month. Petroplus Holdings, the Swiss-based company which bought the Essex plant from BP earlier this year, said the refinery was producing less than half its usual output of 220,000 barrels-per-day after the blaze damaged a key production unit.

The blaze occurred on October 31, and Petroplus said preliminary findings indicated that it was localised in the Pentane Isomerization Unit Dehexanizer Column, which is mainly used to produce gasoline components. In a statement, the company said: “Assessments have begun to determine the extent of the damage on this unit. Based on experience with these types of incidents, the downtime to repair this type of column would be expected to be about a month. “Once further on-site assessment is completed the actual estimate of downtime will be determined and advised. “The refinery is currently running unaffected units. While only the Dehexanizer suffered damage, this key unit impacts operations of many other units within the refinery.” The company said it was able to keep supplying customers with fuel due to its existing stocks, purchases from third parties, and supply from other Petroplus North Sea refineries. It expects this to continue until the full refinery is repaired. Petroplus has five refineries in Europe, and Coryton is its biggest operation.It also has a refinery in Teeside. Consequently, petrol stations in the UK were reporting shortages due to the fire. Shell confirmed it was not receiving its normal number of deliveries. A Shell spokeswoman said: “We have had problems but this is a short term problem. “It’s possible that supply will be interrupted, especially in the area around Essex. Some garages in that area have experienced shortages. But we do not anticipate that this will impact at national level. “We are working very hard to minimise the effect on retailers.”

The UK Petroleum Industry Association has announced a week-long card fraud prevention campaign in conjunction with APACS, the UK Payments Association. The campaign, which started on November 5, was designed as a reminder for customers to keep their cards and PINs safe and secure at all times.

During the campaign, customers paying by card at many service stations throughout the UK will be given a small device card, reminding them to remain vigilant to the risks of fraud.

The advice on the card contains three simple messages: Guard your Card; Shield your PIN and Be Alert. APACS figures show that since the introduction of chip and PIN, card fraud losses on the UK High Street have decreased by 67%. However, fraudsters continue to try and copy the cards’ magnetic stripe details to create fake cards that can be used overseas in countries that do not have chip and PIN. There have been several high-profile cases of service stations this year that have been targeted.

Go to http://www.cardwatch.org,uk for more details

The Government has been warned that it risks accusations of blackmailing local authorities over it’s attempts to enforce road pricing.

The warning comes from the House of Commons Transport Committee, which was also highly critical of the Governments actions with reference to publishing its draft Local Transport Bill, which contains proposals to expand road pricing.

The cross-party transport committee, which is appointed by the House of Commons to examine all aspects of the Department for Transport’s work and policies, said that as a result of severe funding pressure, it was unfair to restrict the availability of funds for urgent improvements in transport infrastructure to those authorities that would consider local road pricing schemes.

“This risks blackmailing local authorities to conduct road pricing trials on behalf of Government in advance of a possible national scheme” it said.

The Government have refuted the claim, responding that it would not support schemes unless there was robust modelling to show they would be beneficial.

The committee also said that the Government’s policy to use Transport Innovation Fund projects at local level to explore the impact of road pricing is flawed.

“These projects are supposedly trials and experiments but their costs are extremely high – in the cases of Greater Manchester and the west Midlands, £3 billion and £2 billion respectively, with debts lasting up to 30 years” pointed out the committee in a report published this week.

“The failiure of these projects would place a huge burden on the public purse. A range of town and city centre pricing schemes will not tell us a great deal about the impact of road pricing on inter-urban routes and major trunk roads. If the Government intends to bring forward proposals for a national road-pricing scheme, we recommend that it first conducts pilot studies of the effect of pricing on the strategic road network.”

The committee also criticised the Government’s plans for attempting to introduce national road pricing through the back door. “A national road pricing scheme would be a major departure from the local schemes envisaged in this Bill, which would merit it’s own piece of primary legislation,” it said.

Reacting to this, the DfT said: “No decisions have been made on national road pricing. The Government is clear that any such decision would need to be informed by experiences from local charging schemes and should only come after a full and informed public debate.”

It is also agreed that new legislation would be needed for a national scheme.