Motorists are more dependent than ever on their cars, with nine out of ten saying it would be difficult to adjust their lifestyle to being without the car and only 1 in 3 saying they would use their car less if public transport were improved.

Investment in the road network is failing to keep up with the growth in traffic levels. Between 1991 and 2001, road traffic increased 15%, yet road length only grew by 9%. Public transport would need to double in the next 12-14 years even to maintain car traffic at its current level.

The potential solutions: the current evidence suggests congestion is a problem that needs to be managed rather than eliminated. The research investigated a variety of different measures that could potentially help managing congestion. These fall into four main areas: financial penalties, journey planning, capacity utilisation and road maintenance.

Road charging is now seen as “inevitable” by almost half of motorists. Despite this, support remains low (25%) and even in London - where charges will be introduced from February 2003 – only 16% of motorists believe it will have a significant impact on traffic levels.

Motorists’ main concern is that road charging is just another method of raising taxes (three quarters of all motorists agree).

For motorists to be more supportive of such schemes they want to see monies raised from charges spent on transport (69%) over other public services such as education (2%). They also want to see real benefits – 49% would support road charges if the money raised was spent on improving existing roads.

Companies are also directly affected by road charging, and their reaction toward them is mixed. They are more in favour of road charging than workplace parking charges - 94% would pay road charges on work-related journeys and 8% say they would pay charges on their employees’ private journeys. This contrasts with 70% of fleet managers strongly opposing the introduction of workplace parking charges.

Motorists are starting to change the way they plan their journeys with a third of motorists now embracing “new” technology such as the Internet to plan their journey routes. Once on the move, however, motorists still prefer the “old favourites” such as roadside message signs and local radio.

Changing the capacity of existing roads through increased use of hard shoulders as an extra lane is widely opposed. Only 16% of motorists believe the capacity of motorways should be increased in this way - mainly because of the safety risk they believe this change brings.

Bus lanes could be used as part of a package of measures to contain congestion although motorists are not sold on the effectiveness of bus lanes – a third agree they encourage people to use public transport while two fifths agree they reduce congestion. Only one fifth of bus lane encroachers (18% of motorists) have ever been fined.

Motorists feel strongly about the state of the roads in the UK, in particular about the poor quality of the road surface and the extent of roadworks. On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is no problem and 10 is a major problem, motorists rated the quality of the road surface 6.3 on local roads and 5.2 on major roads. Similarly, they rated the extent of roadworks 6.0 and 6.2 on local and major roads respectively.

Over half of motorists support utility companies being charged when they dig up the road and three quarters believe utility companies should co-ordinate their work, so that roadworks are carried out less frequently.

The use of parking controls is another measure that could potentially ease congestion. However the research found corporate rebellion over work-place parking tax. 95% of companies offer free parking, seven in ten strongly oppose further charges and if imposed, only 10% would place restrictions and a further 10% pass on the charge to employees.

Private drivers are also opposed to charging for parking with two in three agreeing that there are already too many restrictions. Less than half are confident that they understand the rules around where one can and cannot park.