Posted on 11/06/2008 8:02:09 AM PST by BGHater
Trial could lead to £1.30-a-mile charges
Hundreds of drivers are being recruited to take part in government-funded road-pricing trials that could result in charges of up to £1.30 a mile on the most congested roads.
The test runs will start early next year in four locations and will involve fitting a satellite-tracking device to the vehicles of volunteers. An on-board unit will automatically deduct payments from a shadow account set up in the drivers name.
Paul Clark, the Transport Minister, confirmed yesterday that the trials would proceed despite previous statements from the Government suggesting that it had abandoned the idea of a national road-pricing scheme. In 2004 a feasibility study considered a range of possible prices, up to £1.30 a mile. It said that the highest rate would be paid by only 0.5 per cent of traffic.
The on-board unit could be used to collect all road charges, such as congestion charges in London and Manchester and tolls for crossing bridges and using new lanes on motorways.
In the longer term the technology could be used to introduce pricing on all roads, with the price varying according to the time of day, direction of travel and the level of congestion.
Drivers would use the internet to check all their payments on a single bill. They would choose whether the bill showed where they had travelled or simply the amounts they had paid.
Ministers hope to overcome concerns about loss of privacy by allowing drivers to instruct the on-board unit not to transmit locations to the billing centre but simply the number of miles driven at each charging rate.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has appointed four companies to test different charging systems and a further three companies to test methods of enforcing a pricing scheme and ensuring its accuracy.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/news/article5084291.ece
Change You Can Believe in.
Big Brother is watching you and then, adding insult to injury, he’s making you pay through the nose.
I've watched Law and Order enough times to know this this statement is simply not true.
Wow. I don’t even know what to say about that. Would a government under Cameron stop any of this madness or are they now just crazy lite? I have lost track of the UK Conservatives the last few years. I know Cameron is making a push, but I know he isn’t another Thatcher either...besides the lack of a skirt.
ML/NJ
Santiago, Chile has these damn things all around. They do make trafic flow better but they are very EXPENSIVE for the driver and almost everyone I have spoken with has been presented bogus bills!
Link~
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/news/article5084291.ece
What do you bet Mayor Bloomberg somehow has his paws in this scheme? It sound like something he would do/tried to do in NYC.
And, the cameras are beinbg intergrated to the police dept. They will track plate numbers.
I got two words for this crap:
Faraday Cage.
This is one place where a bit of tin foil would actually work, along with some mud on the license plates...:^)
Become the stealth car...
Paradoxically a road pricing system is in theory the most conservative-compatible method of funding a road network - each consumer is buying a quantifiable product, neither subsidising nor being subsidised by any other. Difficult to see, however, a practicable means of applying this theory which doesn’t involve surveillance.
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