FOI - ULEZ projected cost and income ratio [Aug 2023]

Your request

• As the obvious reason for setting up the ULEZ charge has been to take polluting cars off the road, please can you supply how much the scheme will cost, initially to set up and then year on year projected cost and income ratio for the next 20 years.
• At some point the scheme will cost more than the revenue brings in owing to less and less polluting cars on the road so in the future there will be a time when Londoners will be paying the Mayor directly. When will this be?

Our response

Based on current assumptions made, the estimated costs to set up the expanded London-wide ULEZ are in the range of £145m - £155m. This includes costs of signage, detection and enforcement infrastructure, marketing, project overheads and risk. 

Separately, the Mayor has provided £160m in funding for a vehicle scrappage scheme to help Londoners prepare for the ULEZ. 

The projections for the London-wide expansion of the ULEZ predict that annual net revenue from the ULEZ will fall to below zero by 2026-27.

The early expected net proceeds per year were published in the Four-Year General Programme for Applying Net Proceeds, available on the Transport for London (TfL) website.

It is a statutory requirement that any net revenue generated by TfL's road charging schemes (the ULEZ, Low Emission Zone or the Congestion Charge) is reinvested back into London’s transport network for purposes that directly or indirectly facilitate the implementation of, or any policies or proposals set out in, the Mayor’s Transport Strategy.

TfL is the Mayor's transport authority and is responsible for implementing the Mayor's 
Transport Strategy, and for the design, procurement, delivery and operational running of road user charging schemes such as the ULEZ. You may wish to send a further request to TfL at [email protected]

If you have any further questions relating to this matter, please contact us, quoting
reference MGLA210823-4638.