scoobynutta555

As I've said before, motorists will change their habits, they will leave main routes which will be priced the highest at peak times and go on a quest for cheaper roads. There will be much more traffic on minor routes which were not built for the extra traffic and there will be more accidents. Once tariffs are raised on these routes others will be found and so on. Motorways are the safest and quickest form of transport for vehicles despite congestion. Even on these routes many of the delays experienced are due to accidents and not congestion per se.

Big cities and in particular the south east have seen mass population migration from within our shores and from outside of them. The current network of road building, and indeed public transport has not met these extra numbers. I have no evidence of Polish or indeed other nationals to contributing to congestion, but it's patently obvious they are a factor with the numbers involved. The gov't itself do not know the numbers of people entering and settling into the country, so how am I supposed to?

The current system is efficient and it has shown to be a great revenue raiser. A massive amount is raised as it is per year, a fraction of which is pushed into road infrastructure to enable it to compete with demand. The easiest form of revenue raising is an increase in fuel duty. It must be far cheaper to raise extra tax this way than by investing billions into an unproven system which may not solve the problem it was designed for. If pump prices rose there would be less demand, ergo less congestion, and an increase in less polluting cars. Likewise on road tax, the most inefficient cars could see their annual licence rise. Both measures would cost next to nothing as the structures are already in place.

Please give me the latest estimate for investment in this new system and I will confidently tell you to double, even triple any amount you have seen published as the true cost. And as a bonus, I'll even tell you now the problem of congestion won't be solved. Just look to Ken Livingstones CC and tell me the problem of congestion is solved.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

While Labour annoy the crap out of me it is the Tories who I feel are even worse regarding this.

Here they are with a sure fire vote winner and guaranteed road back to government staring them in the face if they oppose this and offer some sensible and proper solutions, but what do we get:

W**kers

Labour/Tories - one and the same.

scoobynutta555

Yes indeed, a sure fire vote winner and that toff idiot is too busy prattling on about hugging hoodies and crappy wind turbines on his million pound house.

GCollier

Ben, I'm simply regurgitating proven economic theory on use of externality pricing to improve the efficiency of markets. This has nothing to do with any government line, but since it seems to be implied that I'm some NL supporter, for the record I haven't voted labour and will certainly not be voting for Gordon Brown at the next election.

It's not just motorways which are too busy. For much of the road network expansion simply isn't an option. And even if it was you're left with the same problem; a method of charging which is simply sub-optimal when it comes down to ensuring efficient use of our roads.

For many jobs, sure, flexible hours would be a problem. But this certainly doesn't apply to all jobs. We live in an increasingly globalised market and seem to be able to work effectively around large time zone differences.

GCollier

You're right that to some extent congestion is self-regulating. But that's only looking at it for from the point of view an individuals own interest, i.e. they don't want to be personally stuck in a traffic jam for hours. What road pricing attempts to do is to ensure that each individual pays for the full external cost of their actions on others (hence why it is termed an "externality" charge). Consider an example - you have an hours commute by car. Perhaps 15 minutes of that commute are spent stuck in traffic in an urban area which has become heavily congested by people making short school runs. Those people making the school run probably don't give a dam that they add 15 minutes onto your commute as there is no financial incentive for them to do so - all they see is that 15 minutes in their car at walking pace is a little bit more convenient than 15 minutes on foot.

A properly priced and implemented road charging policy should not be designed to shaft everyone by being an enormous tax burden. But what it should do is make people sit and think for a second before making those "marginal" journeys (e.g. the school run in the above example) by ensuring that the cost of those journeys properly reflects the cost and inconvenience to others. If this is done properly (and I stress it has to be done properly and pitched at the right level), it will have the ability to make everyones lives more pleasant.

Whether the government can turn what is compelling theory into reality, well of course that is another matter. Current talk of things such as punitive taxes on 4x4's which are politically motivated rather than economically targeted at the right area does not bode well.

GCollier

That would only happen in a poorly designed system. A properly designed system would price each road according to the true cost to others of using that road at that time. See the example I gave to Speedking above.

What is a fact is that the amount of money spent on private transport (fuel etc) by the poorest fraction of society is almost an order of magnitude less than the richest fraction. Many of the immigrants you talk of are doing the jobs that no one else wants and are probably amongst the poorer members of society. This is of course speculation to some extent, but I'd be surprised if Eastern European immigrants have a substantial effect on congestion.

But that's the point, the current system isn't efficient. People can use the system without thinking about or paying for the cost of their actions on others and the economy as a whole.

I don't know the cost of a full road pricing implementation. It's not going to be cheap though, and certainly won't happen soon, and even when/if it does it would need to be implemented over many years. But then congestion has a massive cost to the economy, running into tens of £billions per year I believe.

KiwiGTI

You can already see the companies like Capita rubbing their hands in anticipation of the huge amounts of cash coming their way.

andythejock01wrx

Huh ??

GCollier

If you google keywords such as "road pricing externality" you'll probably pull up articles to read. But in essence it simply means that everyone should pay fairly for the negative consequences their actions have on others.

The case I gave in https://www.scoobynet.com/non-scooby...ml#post6412352 of someone commuting to work being delayed by people on a school run is a simple example of where the current system fails because externalities aren't charged correctly.

Gary.

andythejock01wrx

Thanks Gary,

I can be a lazy "googler" at times !

Andy

speedking

I disagree. The reason that we have so much congestion is that more vehicle journeys are undertaken. One of the main reasons for that is that centralised production locations and single distribution centres are an efficient way of manufacturing and distributing goods. People have to travel to work and shop. Congestion is only a consequence because the road system is relatively underdeveloped.

To reduce car journeys, people will have to work nearer where they live (or live nearer where they work). The economies of scale of out of town shopping centres will be lost. We will revert to local industry, e.g. every town would have to have a bicycle manufacturer. This worked OK in the middle ages when every town had a blacksmith, and most people worked on the land to feed their own village. I don't think that most of today's population want to go back there.

The economic cost of society going backwards has to be balanced against the '£billions' lost due to congestion. On balance I stand by my argument that market forces and self-regulating congestion are quite acceptable control measures.

All this can be scaled up to the global marketplace and would be very bad news for the competitiveness of UK manufacturers.

Dream Weaver

This is the problem with this sort of road pricing, people like yourself which, at a guess, live in London.

Yes its easy for you to walk 5 minutes to a station and use public transport to get to work, as London has a half decent public transport network.

But what about the rest of the population that are forgotten about?

None of this directly affects me in my work (until the economy dies), but it does affect for example, my wife.

How do those of us that don't live in cities get about? Our train station is 60 minutes walk, and only runs trains every hour, and then they dont go very far only to Preston I think. The bus routes are a joke and it takes 90 minutes to travel 15 miles.

And you think the £28bn would go on improving this situation? I doubt it.

What happened to driving for pleasure, why does no-once consider that some of us actually enjoy driving as a pastime? Why is everything about "economonics" and "green issues"???

Global warming/climate change doesn't even exist FFS!!

GC8

Climate change does exist; the Earth's climate is in a constant state of flux..... Whether its really caused by industrial CO2 emmissions is another matter.

If we assume for the moment that it does and we (in the United Kingdom) completely stopped (and by completely I mean returning to the dark ages); then our shortfall would be made up by the growth in the Chinese economy in under three working weeks!

Viewed in that light it all seems rather pointless, doesnt it?

lozgti

It won't work.

The fact that one day without petrol brought this country to a standstill should have hinted at the fact that people like using their cars and would move heaven and earth to keep using them.

Which is probably part of the plan

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Exactly. The Earth is heating up. If all of manmade CO2 is stopped tomorrow it will still heat up.

The Earth might be 1 degree warmer in X amount of years if we carry on as we are, as opposed to 0.9 degrees warmer if all carbon based industry stopped.

We are not king Canute, we cannot change the Earth returning to its tropical existance pre dinosaur killing asteroid strike, neither can we stop it returning to an ice age. It depends on mother nature TBH.

You can't tax the sun for its solar seasons, nor the Earth for its eliptical orbit.

But you can try and replace an empty war chest and pension fund caused by the pesky motorists - Ba5tards!

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Another thought, if all the oil is due to run out in 50 years time, surely that will put an end to all this manmade global warming and carbon footprint crap.

These green taxes will never affect climate change, just collect money whilst the earth self regulates

Slartibartfast

I should imagine that this one incident alone woill have pumped more carbon into the atmosphere than you or I will create in a lifetime:

BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Fireworks depot fire

Does that mean fireworks will be banned/taxed?

I would also like figures on how much Blair himself as contributed to carbon emissions waging his illegal wars in the Middle East. Millions and millions of tons, directly down to him - yet he has the nerve to lecture and tax us for our insignificant contributions.

Dream Weaver

Absolutely.

Why should we return to the dark ages just "in case" the planet is slightly warmer in 100 years??

We should stop interfering with everything and just let it take its course.

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Ah ha time to replace the German plates with Swiss plates on my car then

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

And just think when Romania joins the EU on Jan 1st 2007!!! A colleague of min has just come back from Bucharest and the Romanians are counting down the days until they can get into the UK on Jan 1st.

Oh happy days for you all

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

Just how do they intend to collect this tax money anyway? thousands of people do not pay teh current road tax so how do they intend to enforce this ?

will they send you a bill that you pay monthly or yearly etc or deduct it from your wages provided you have a job that is! what if you don't pay or deactivate the box ?

Will they arrest you and throw you in jail? if so then the tax payer has to pay for your upkeep inside and the government still do not get their tax money, you will probably get fired if you have a job so will then need to go on the dole when you come out of prison. I can not see how things will change from the current non paying population. All I can see is the administration of enforcing this new policy sky rocketing. Perhaps if you do not pay then they will deactivate your car so you can not drive it but surely this can be overcome by anyone with half a brain cell and a length of cable.

New_scooby_04

iTrader: (4)

I would suggest this system will be enforced via GPS tracking and guess what fellas if they know where you've been they also know.............

Exactly.

Road pricing sounds fair in principle, but it would be the polar opposite in application.

Ns04

scoobynutta555

Guess what, the government is very good at designing systems that are inefficient. This thing is going to fall before the first hurdle is put up let alone jumped over.

If you read my piece, I said an influx of persons to citiies and the SE from within and outside of our shores, not just people from Eastern Europe With any mass movement to concentrated areas you shall get increased traffic movements.

The current system is inefficient, which is why more money should be invested in improving our road network. Not investing it in a system which will not work. People do already think about the cost of their actions when they are sitting in a traffic jam.


There are estimates out there on what it will cost. As I've said, double it, triple it. The money should be spent on improving the road network or releasing private firms to introduce tolled roads.

Nimbus

I read an article on this in a paper at the weekend. It talked about the now usual £1.34 per mile charge for road users, then the next paragraph said that peak time rail fares would be increased to try and limit the expected increase in numbers of people taking the train caused by the introduction of road charging.

Talk about an integrated solution... not..

Dream Weaver

Online petition - We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy.

unclebuck

That sounds pretty integrated to me. Whatever you try to do you will be f**ked over.

GCollier

Of course congestion is caused because more vehicle journeys are being undertaken. So in the presence of a finite resource (our road network), the question is how to reduce the number of journeys being taken such that those journeys no longer being taken are the least valuable? And what's the best way of determining which journeys are the least valuable? Ask people to pay for them. Remember the idea here is to stop the "marginal" journeys being made.

As I said, congestion can be considered self-regulating, but currently it is not self-regulating in a way which provides maximum economic benefit. Why do you support an inefficient system? Do you know something that expert economists don't?

And on the contrary, road pricing would be good for the economy, precisely because it would ensure that the journeys being taken are the most valuable.

GCollier

Actually I don't live in London - although I do work there, and for that privilege pay around £300/month in travel costs.

And you're misinterpreting what I'm saying by assuming some doomsday scenario where everyone is simply priced off the roads and can't get to work. Of course public transport is not viable in some places as you point out.

But not everyone *has* to drive to work. There will be plenty of people who could travel by foot, bike, bus, train, but for whom at the moment it is just a little bit more inconvenient to take the car (I was in such a situation with a job I was in for 5 years some time ago). Give such people a choice between paying extra £ or putting up with a touch more inconvenience and they'll choose the latter. Which is good news for other people who would otherwise share the roads with them at the same time.

GCollier

I do have some cynicism over whether the government can properly and fairly implement such a system, but that doesn't stop the theory behind it being correct.

Agreed that this is not a substitute for investing in roads. It's simply a way of ensuring any road network is used most efficiently.

If when you're stuck in traffic, you personally think about the other people you're inconveniencing by being an extra vehicle on the road, the cost to the economy of making others late for work or delaying deliveries, then kudos to you. But I doubt anyone else is this altruistic, and I doubt even more they currently go around compensating these people being held up or inconvenienced.