It’s going to be a huge challenge
The idea of road pricing is already old enough to allow you to drive yourself. In fact, it is so old that it already has backaches when standing up and complains of terrible hangovers; As early as the 1990s, the cabinet talked about paying according to the use of the car. You can also call it kilometer charge. It really seems to be coming now. ‘In the long term, the next cabinet plans to introduce a form of road pricing. This means that motorists pay per kilometer driven. The idea was introduced many years ago, but until recently the VVD was always against it NOS in an article about the agreement of the new cabinet. However, there are quite a few snags to the idea.
What is road pricing and what happens to road tax?
In principle, road pricing is ‘pay according to use’. Now everyone pays a fixed amount per month for owning a car. We call the monthly pocket money paid to the tax authorities a motor vehicle tax (MRB) and the amount depends on the weight of the car, the fuel and in which province the car is registered. Electric cars currently don’t pay road taxes to encourage EV purchases; this measure will apply until 2024. The exact implementation of road pricing is not yet known, but it is generally assumed that road pricing will replace road tax. Or at least that the MRB decreases considerably.
The types of kilometer charge
There are different interpretations for the kilometer charge. To start with, there is the flat tax, where everyone pays the same amount per kilometer. Then there is the rush hour tax, where kilometers during rush hour are extra expensive. This should discourage people from driving during rush hour with the aim of reducing traffic jams. Paying extra for a place – take a city center – is also possible. Then there is the eco-tax, whereby less fuel-efficient cars pay more per kilometer to encourage green cars. There is also a variant where only drivers of electric cars pay, because fuel drivers already pay excise duties. A combination of place, time and emissions is of course also possible.
There is also another form that does not officially fall under road pricing. A lot of people are in favor of raising fuel prices and abolishing road taxes. In this way you automatically create a situation in which you indirectly pay tax per kilometer – with inefficient cars, the measure comes in harder. However, this form of road pricing has now become obsolete, because electric cars do not refuel – and those drivers also eventually have to pay per kilometre.
The benefits of road pricing
This is not the motivation of the new cabinet, but there is an advantage for car enthusiasts with several cars. If you now have several cars in your driveway, you pay road tax for each one. Soon you would only pay for the car you use. If you have several cars and only use one at a time, it could be cheaper. People who only drive very little and still have a car in front of the door can also benefit from a cheaper price.
Obviously giving people with several cars an advantage is not the main goal. The kilometer charge can encourage greener driving. If you choose a more economical (or electric) car, you will probably save even more than would be the case now. In addition, it is possible to control the time with the rush hour tax, in order to reduce traffic jams. You could also argue that paying according to use is fairer: if you drive little, you also pay less. For those who drive a lot, it can turn out unfavorable.
Incidentally, many Dutch people are in favor of it. According to a study by Multiscope this year, the Dutch are over. Or at least the people they interviewed. The agency conducted a survey among more than 3,000 Dutch people, which shows that 58 percent of them prefer road pricing over fixed taxes.
The disadvantages of road pricing
To start with, the practical implementation will be a very large and expensive job. How on earth are you going to keep track of where, when and how much all the cars are driving? This could perhaps be done very easily with software for new cars, but how do you close that in combination with the privacy law? Can the government really track every car? And what about old cars? Will all older models get a GPS box? Not everyone agrees with that either. And how do you prevent fraud from people who remove the cupboard and leave it at home?
Another way is to place cameras along the road that recognize license plates. The question is whether you want to put cameras along the road literally throughout the Netherlands. In terms of costs and in terms of privacy. Or do you only put them along the highway? But how do you counter cut traffic? Either way, it’s going to be a costly undertaking. Another option is to note the mileage at the MOT, but this will not work either. New cars do not have to be inspected in the first few years and it would be very susceptible to fraud. Besides, you don’t want to get a huge bill once a year, do you?
Another obstacle
And how do you get the amounts fair? If the government decides that cars with higher emissions have to pay more per kilometre, then sound emissions data must be available. Older cars have been measured through the legacy NEDC cycle. This measurement method provides different data from the current WLTP measurement method. Is it fair to tax older cars with emissions that are actually incorrect? And what about plug-in hybrids – they are only economical if you charge them. Admittedly, the latter has been a dilemma of recent years.
When are we going to charge?
As you can see, there are quite a few snags to the intention to introduce kilometer tax. The NOS expect it to take a while; maybe even after this cabinet. This would mean that we will only start road pricing after 2025. This rhymes with an earlier message from 2019, in which the House of Representatives said that road pricing would come in 2026. The chosen method and method of lifting will also depend on the composition of the vehicle fleet by then. If 90 percent already drive electric (unlikely, but you don’t know), there will be less emphasis on greening the vehicle fleet.
