A pressure group has questioned the Government's plans for national congestion charging after the M6 Toll carried fewer cars last month than the same period last year.
Traffic on the road has fallen five per cent from 47,986 in June last year to 45,325 last month, operator Midland Expressway Limited revealed.
These are the first figures released since Transport Secretary Alistair Darling announced the Government's desire to have a pay-as-you-drive system operated with satellites on all roads.
A spokesman for the National Alliance Against Tolls (NAAT) said: "In an ideal world there would be more traffic, particularly lorries, attracted on to the new M6 from the old M6 and other roads in the West Midlands.
"But then in an ideal world there would be no tolls."
MEL raised the toll charges by 50p in June, which it said accounted for the drop in demand.
The NAAT spokesman said the £3.50 toll charge for cars mirrored what it claims could be the top rate charge per mile in the Government's road charging scheme.
" With the mid- June increase in the toll to £3.50, the M6 toll now works out at 13 pence per mile.
"If drivers rightly do not want to pay 13 pence a mile, what chance is there for £3.50 a mile under the proposed system?
"Drivers are already paying around £42 billion a year in taxes. But public spending on roads is only £7 billion, or only tuppence per mile travelled."
Last year there was a DfT consultation exercise on proposals for a new toll road, the M6 Expressway, from the end of the M6 Toll in Staffordshire to the North-west. The DfT has still not said if it will push ahead with that plan.
