A hidden transport crisis is looming, according to the RAC Foundation, and the current £15 billion cost to business will rise to £30 billion in just ten more years.

Currently the government reinvests just a little over one third of the £42 billion it collects from road users and only one seventh actually goes purely into roads. "We claim to be the world’s fourth largest economy yet we have a transport system that sometimes resembles something from the third world," said Sue Nicholson, head of campaigns for the RAC Foundation

The foundation said: "A transport crisis is looming if the new government buries its head in the sand and fails to develop and fund a national transport strategy."

The "Agenda for Action" launched by the foundation calls for the road network to be urgently improved.

Suggestions include:

• Appropriate recognition must be given to transport in land-use and economic planning. If new housing is to be built the transport infrastructure must be improved.
• New road capacity should be examined.
• Widening all main motorways and trunk roads and adding more tunnels and bypasses.
• Appointing a roads regulator.
• Introducing a national road user charging scheme, but only when technically possible and acceptable to motorists.
• Reviewing the use of speed cameras and speed limits and improving road signs.

Sue Nicholson, said, "Transport has to be one of the first issues tackled by the new government. Without urgent action our transport system is headed for the buffers."

But green campaigners were not impressed. Friends of the Earth's transport campaigner Tony Bosworth said, "Tackling the UK's transport crisis must be a priority for the government, but widening motorways and trunk roads isn't the answer. It will generate more traffic, more climate-changing emissions and won't solve congestion problems."

"The Government should concentrate on giving drivers better alternatives to the car by improving public transport and making streets safer for cycling and walking," Mr Bosworth said.