Edmund King hoping his annual allowance idea will win £250,000 Wolfson Economics prize, which sought ideas from around the world on improving roads

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A proposal from the boss of the AA for drivers to receive an annual “road miles” allowance is among the ideas shortlisted for a £250,000 competition to find new ways of funding the UK road network.

Edmund King, the president of the motoring organisation, has appeared on a shortlist of five entries to win the Wolfson Economics prize, this year awarded for ideas on how to fund better, more reliable roads.

The submission, authored jointly with his wife, the business analyst Deirdre King, envisages a future where drivers receive an annual allowance of “road miles”. As well as trading them, drivers could pay for the right to travel further by entering auctions or lotteries, which would raise more income to maintain the network.

Other ideas include allowing companies to name roads after themselves as an incentive for them to ensure they are pothole-free.

Additional road miles would be granted to drivers with special needs and those with the cleanest, greenest vehicles, King said. “It’s a way of giving free access to the road network but safeguarding further revenues rather than introducing a nationwide charging system that would be political suicide,” he said.

The Kings are joined on the shortlist by an eclectic mix of transport planners from Australia, a Hungarian graduate and a stay-at-home mother who is expecting her third child imminently.

Sir John Kingman, the chairman of the judging panel, said that the hundred-plus entries, which were submitted anonymously to judges including the former Labour chancellor and transport secretary Alistair Darling, contained some “quite funky ideas”, with a Harvard professor among those who had just failed to make the cut.

He said the best entrants had thought deeply about the imminent technological future of autonomous cars, as well as the problem of how to fund roads with fuel and motoring taxes in long-term decline.



Kingman said: “The problem of congestion is very real right now. Motorists are understandably discontented and the existing ways of paying for roads are broken. What we need is a politically viable solution which is popular and the public can see is good for them.

“This is one of the great unsolved policy problems that has plagued British debates for a long time.”

A study by the Institute of Fiscal Studies for the RAC Foundation forecast that Treasury revenues from motorists are due to drop by more than a third to £25bn by the end of the next decade, making a £250,000 award seem cheap at the price.

King said they were not counting any chickens at this stage, but admitted: “An electric car, a Tesla, would be nice.”

The winner of the prize will be announced in July.