Car charge trials 'in five years'

jase_31 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 04, 2005 Posts: 23

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4075490.stm

Pay-as-you go road charging could be trialled within five years, says Transport Secretary Alistair Darling.

In a speech to the Social Market Foundation at Westminster, Mr Darling said that using a satellite system to charge drivers for the journeys they make was vital to avoid future gridlock.
The pilot scheme is likely to cover a large conurbation or region, he said. If it is a success a nationwide scheme could be in place as early as 2015.
Satellite tracking would be used with charges varying from 2p a mile on rural roads to £1.30 in congested areas.
Mr Darling said charging could replace road tax and fuel duty. It would leave half of motorists better off, he said.

1) "Mr Darling said that using a satellite system to charge drivers for the journeys they make was vital to avoid future gridlock"

Why? Some of us might accept that action is needed in some form to cope with future needs, and this may be "one" option; but WHY is using a satellite system vital? There are alternatives be it road building, TMC/navigation, tax on fuel, tax on vehicle purchase, company car taxation, public transport links, restrictions on number of cars per household, toll roads etc etc etc. One again it seem to be that the policy has been decided, and now we fit the reasoning (and develop the technology) to acheive the predermined aim (i.e iraqi, id card etc etc)

2) How does a "pilot" scheme work? Are you not allowed to drive in the conurbation unless you have the system fitted? Do the people involved in the trial have to pay road fees and VED and fuel duty? or is this just a theorectical excercise to "test the technology" without charging before rolling out the scheme nationwide.

3) Mr Darling said charging could replace road tax and fuel duty! Could! again slipperly language so that by the time of implementation it will be in additon to not instread of road tax and fuel duty.

4) Vehicle tracked by GPS and then billed for usage. The govenment will therefore be able to track the movement of every vehicle within metres at any time of day. This couple to ID cards, and the centralised databases that are already proposed, including DNA/fingerprints taken by force by the police (even when you have been arrested and release without charge). tracking everything from what videos you hire out, or books borrowed from the library, together with your travel details, spending etc etc etc lead to yet again, an unprecedented level of survellance by the government on every citizen.

5) As well as tracking location, GPS also tracks speed. Therefore you automatically create the worlds largest speed camera system. Your speed is monitored every second you drive, and you will collect fines as you drive (yet another tax!). Having said that, as you will be able to gain enough points in a single journey to be disqualified there will be less drivers and hence less congestion!

6) Mr Darling claims that the idea is not to price people out of cars, but encourage then to make better use of the road network by adjusting their travel times. This will never happen. Even now if you want to go from A->B and have a choice of the time to travel you can chose not to travel during peak hours. Most of us already do this where possible. The fact is that many of us have to travel at this time, as it is dictated by work patterns. What are you suppose to do, finish work at 5 and then wait till 8 before you travel back?

7) If you really want to use satellitle technology to make better use of the network, then there is a better system then road charging. We already have TMC/Traffic capability in some systems, but at the moment this is run by private companies (iTIS or TM). This should be a Highways Agency function, with TMC coding made avaliable to ALL roads using average road speeds.

We already have TMC info from TM/iTIS but this could further be expanded with a many more "users" of satnat becoming floating data points for the system (the privacy issues would have to be addressed, but this is an issue with the proposed system in any case). As a result we can get a fairly accurate picture of the entire road network and road speeds at any one time covering all roads.

This information can then be passed to satnav systems to perform dynamic routing. Thus say you are travelling from Birmingham to London. Normally the system may route you down the M1; but as the M1 gets busy drivers are routed down the M40 as a quicker route. This then takes pressure off the M1 and makes better use of both roads.

On the same basis, if a motorway slows so that a route can better be taken by driving off the motorway then drivers will be routed off the motorway to continue their journey, this then releive congestion on the road etc etc.

In some very small way idea have already been attempted around Birmingham with the information panels, but coupled with a true dynamic routing system the entire road network could be better optmised, by routing each driver over the quickest route based on road conditions at that time. With the additional advantage that by default where there is congestion, a number of drivers are provided with an alternative route unless passing through the congestion remains the quickest option.

This would be a beneficial use of technology, and enable to road network to be fully and dynamically utilised, and not just using a "sat" system for an additonal form of taxation.

	PocketGPS
	Web