ONE of the Government's leading advisers on transport policy has called for motorists to be made to pay more through targeted congestion charging rather than road tax and fuel duty. Professor David Begg, chairman of the new Commission for Integrated Transport and director of the Centre for Transport Policy at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, believes road tolls would be a fairer system.

That move would make motorists who drive into urban areas or on busy motorways, and contribute more to pollution levels, pay more than drivers in rural areas. Speaking on BBC's Panorama programme on road tolls, Begg said: 'We need to start placing less reliance on fuel duty and introduce charging so that where the motorway network and cities are congested and where there's more pollution, motorists pay more.'