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Today's DT reports that a satellite based scheme to charge heavy lorries for the use of autobahns has collapsed. The system was supposed to raise £4.5 billion to improve the public transport infra structure; this money will now have to borrowed. The system was 16 months late and haulage companies are left with £50 million worth of tracking equipment fitted to their lorries which is of no use. Our men at the top might like to bear this one in mind when they try to introduce a system which will track all UK road users 24 hours a day and charge them for their road use. Earlier this week it was announced that a compter system designed to simplify the work of the Child Support Agency is to be abandoned, having cost £450 million. Road charging by the mile in UK! Not in my lifetime! Mind you I am fairly old!
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They'll bring it in, it's just you'll get charged even whe you're cars in the garage and your in bed. You will get the choice of paying the fee, or waiting and paying thrice!
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Nah, you'd just decide to join the 45% of people who don't currently pay their fines for criminal offences.
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We've been through all this quite recently. The simplest and least dodgeable way to charge per mile is at the pumps, which happens already. I suppose even if it were made obvious that an extra 10p (or whatever) per litre was for tolling purposes, everyone would redouble the rants about the most expensive fuel in the world, can't compete with French prices, etc.
And then do extra miles across the Channel to buy at the French pumps instead. Or run diesels on lubricating oil or something else.
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The simplest and least dodgeable way to charge per mile is at the pumps, which happens already
That's actually a very good point. I see also that the hauliers say HMG promised to make this neutral by reducing fuel tax by a corresponding amount, in which case the plan can be summarised as a change from:
a simple cheap and reliable method of charging for mileage
to:
a complex, expensive and probably unreliabel method that will look hideous.
Err....
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As unreliabel as my spelling, no doubt...
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.. and of course, if selective road tolling were introduced, it is a clear instruction to choose a toll-free alternative, so the traffic moves from a road which can just about take it, to one that can't. Bring back the rat-runs ..
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"Road charging by the mile in UK! Not in my lifetime!"
Oh dear AS we'll miss you old chap, start getting worried.
In today's Times. Which I would recommend you buy as the article is longer than the online version and a nice photo of one of these blots on the landscape.
Quote
Landscape blight of lorry toll towers
By Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent
THOUSANDS of giant steel gantries may be installed on Britain's roads under plans to impose tolls on lorries.
Motoring groups said that the gantries would blight the countryside but were the only proven way to collect the charges automatically.
The system of charging vehicles per mile, in an attempt to relieve congestion, is expected to be extended to cars once it has been successfully tested on lorries.
Customs and Excise, the department drawing up the scheme, which is due to be introduced by 2006, said that gantries were not the "preferred solution" but might be necessary.
Ministers want to use satellites, but a German satellite system broke down this week, shaking confidence in the technology. German taxpayers stand to lose £4.4 billion from the failure.
Officials are now studying Austria?s system, which was successfully introduced last month. It has chosen a simpler microwave system by which a toll is deducted automatically from a transponder unit on the dashboard every time a lorry passes under a gantry.
The tolls apply only to Austria's 1,200 miles of motorways which have gantries every three miles. The British system is expected to apply to all roads to prevent lorries from switching to residential routes to avoid payment.
The process of selecting a private contractor to run the scheme, which was meant to start last year, has been delayed by concerns over the technology. Linda Swinburne, manager of the Customs and Excise lorry toll programme, told a Freight Transport Association conference in London that bidders might opt for the Austrian system but agreed that some areas might object to the gantries. The procurement process will begin "sometime this year."
Edmund King, executive director of the RAC Foundation, said: "Installing thousands of gantries on the road network will blight our countryside. The sight of so many hideous steel structures will be unacceptable to many people."
Phil Goodwin, professor of transport policy at University College London, told the conference that tolls would have little impact on congestion until they applied to cars.
"Any extra road space created will be taken up by extra cars," he predicted.
But he urged the Government to press ahead with the scheme because, once extended to all vehicles, it would save £4 billion of working time currently wasted by drivers sitting in traffic jams. "If you wait until the technology is perfect there is a danger you will never do it at all."
Several freight companies voiced concern yesterday that the Government would renege on a pledge to make the tolls "revenue neutral" by giving fuel duty rebates equal to the total collected.
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"the gantries would blight the countryside but were the only proven way to collect the charges automatically. "
As ever, the policy choice is between having the money for schools & hospitals (as if it makes a difference...) and creating a hideous view from every road. An easy choice, I would say, but HMG seems more concerned about raising cash than anything else. If this gets any further then we need to start telling our elected representatives exactly what we feel.
and:
"Any extra road space created will be taken up by extra cars," he predicted.
Err, so more drivers will be able to choose to get to work on the same roads? Why is that a bad thing? Why do transport "experts" see busy roads as an intrinsically bad thing? I look at a busy road and see lots of people who have chosen to use that road - presumably because they want to.
Is their idea of nirvana really a state where every road is empty because everyone is trapped at home unable to afford their cars?
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But he urged the Government to press ahead with the scheme because, once extended to all vehicles, it would save £4 billion of working time currently wasted by drivers sitting in traffic jams.
Yes, and the government would rather have that £4billion to squander, rather than have it go to waste while we sit in jams. Can they honestly say that the businesses will benefit from that £4billion saving?
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it would save £4 billion of working time currently wasted by drivers sitting in traffic jams
And where does that number come from? Will we really be £4bn better off? If we were then HMG will of course be better off by 40% of £4bn.
Or will we choose to stay in bed a little later in the morning? In which case HMG will have spent huge amounts of cash, made life EVEN harder for haulage firms (now there's an achievement no-one thought possible) and ruined our landscape. In return for which, we get 5 more minutes of sleep.
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Flat in Fifth, predictions of my early demise are misplaced! I meant to say, but perhaps failed, that no road charging system, for all vehicles on our roads and based on the GPS system and a computer, is ever going to work, IMHO. I DO agree that systems based on transponders or windscreen datatags are fine, they are working now on the Tyne Tunnel, the M6 toll, Italian autstrada etc. Anything run by, or sub-contracted by the Government, and based on computers, never mind GPS as well, will be a. Overbudget, b. Late into service, c Probably abandoned with us picking up the bill. I will not go off thread to list schemes that have followed these lines, we can all recall them for ourselves. If I live mine's a pint and if I don't I like carnations!
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AS,
I hope for your sake that this is just another Govt kite flying incident and if we make enough noise then they drop it.
I fear that not sufficient noise will be made about this one.
Therefore they will pick off the minority and then apply it to the rest.
I can see not many people being worried about gantries on motorways, but gantries on normal roads? I would say everyone will object to any gantry near them.
Of course I wouldn't put it past HMG to circumvent planning regulations as they have done with TETRA masts.
Incidentally I have heard from a usually impeccable source that the HM of HMG is getting less and less amused with the current set of idiots in Whitehall.
I say "Off with their heads"
FiF
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