NEW proposals from a Government-commissioned study would force employers by law to develop traffic-reducing travel plans and impose tolls for fleet drivers in the south east, in a move that would dramatically hit fleet running costs.

The report, called the Orbit Transport Study, has intensified the pressure on the Government to introduce road tolls in order to combat congestion. The study's primary recommendation is for a widening of the M25 in conjunction with an area-wide road user charging scheme.

Alternatively, it suggests electronic road tolls on the M25, and priority lanes for cars with two or more passengers, with single occupant car drivers able to pay a fee to drive in the priority lane.

The study, published last week by a consortium of consultants led by Halliburton KBR, backs suggestions that 'all employers should be obliged to produce a travel plan that supports the general aims of sustainability by reducing road traffic levels.'

'This would be a new obligation and legislation would be required to implement it. The consultants would support such an initiative,' they said.

The potential 'carrot' for employers would be the provision of high occupancy vehicle lanes on the M25 to promote car sharing schemes. Recently, two other influential studies have both backed road tolls as a means to beat congestion and speed traffic flows.

In February, the Commission for Integrated Transport said satellite-operated road tolls could raise £5.7 billion a year for the Treasury and reduce traffic volumes by 44%. It estimated that tolls would cost a company car driver covering 30,000 miles a year about £1,800, but would save £2,000 by reducing 'lost' business time spent in jams.

Then in April, a further study into the impact of tolls on main roads advocated charges of 20 pence per mile in urban areas and 2ppm on motorways to curb car use. Former Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, Stephen Byers, insisted that the Government had no intention of levying tolls on inter-urban roads, relying instead on local authorities to introduce congestion charges in their own areas.

But the Orbit Transport Study has once again returned to charges as the optimum means of controlling traffic growth – although the Government insists the views expressed are not its own but those of the consultants.

The study warns that traffic on the M25 will increase by 33% by 2016, if left unchecked, with an extra 3.1 million cars in the area and a 44% increase in households with two or more cars. The consultants forecast that this would reduce traffic speeds on the M25 by between 10% and 20%. As a solution, they propose a frequent orbital coach network to offer an alternative to car travel on the M25, new rail infrastructure developments to improve cross-London links and a widening of the motorway.

They suggest these initiatives should go hand-in-hand with traffic management measures such as controlled access to the motorway, segregated lanes for priority vehicles, a toll for priority lanes used by non-priority vehicles (such as single occupancy cars), electronically collected motorway tolls and area wide road charging.

David Hardcastle, project director for Halliburton KBR, said: 'For any road widening of the M25 to be sustainable it should be in conjunction with road user charging.'