NEW calls to axe the 18,000 business miles company car tax threshold, slash fuel consumption by 25% by 2005, abolish vehicle excise duty, encourage employers to provide changing rooms and secure parking facilities for cyclists and to pay cycle mileage allowances are contained in a wide-ranging mobility report from the RAC. 'Policies for Personal Mobility' sets out the RAC's mobility agenda and examines how various forms of transport - car, bus and train use, cycling, motorcycling and walking - can be integrated to meet the Government's aims of reducing car dependency and at the same time give travellers more real choice and stop the stagnation of the UK's transport system.

The report is published as the Government starts work on its own white paper highlighting what it is calling an integrated transport policy. The paper is due to be published in the spring. The RAC says around 20% of journeys currently made by car could easily be switched to another form of transport or not made at all. They are usually short trips in urban areas which are also the most environmentally damaging. As a result the RAC says 'this group should be targeted first'.

The organisation has also repeated its call for a review of taxes paid on motoring and car ownership so it is seen to be 'equitable and rational'. The RAC's priorities for mobility include: Effective roadside emissions enforcement and maintenance programmes to minimise emissions from existing vehicles, the removal of VAT from emission-related vehicle maintenance, an average reduction in fuel consumption of 25% by 2005 compared to 1990 levels, and the abolishment of vehicle excise duty, placing an equivalent sum on fuel duty to relate payment directly to use and to the amount of carbon dioxide produced.