Road Charging?
Sometime you wonder about what goes on in some people’s heads. This ‘mileage charge’ idea for example;
Having a ‘black box’ fitted to your vehicle is all very well, but how do the powers that be intend to;
As an issue, traffic volumes will not be manageable until the powers that be address the true problem which is based around people working 9 to 5 ‘Bankers hours’, which puts enormous demands on the transport infrastructure at given times of day. It’s just sheer weight of traffic (Ever seen an Oxford Street ‘People Jam around the six o’clock marker?) So without a huge cull, how do you spread the demand on the system?
The answer seems fairly simple given the rapidly altering pattern of our lives, more shift working and flexitime. Start school hours earlier (Or later) to begin with; thus shift the ‘school run’ and move 20% of peak hour traffic outside peak hours. Government offices might spread the load by having two start times, say 8am and 10am with finish times at 4:30 and 7pm respectively. The result of such changes would be better public service cover and a reduced burden on the system at peak times.
The reduced congestion would my life easier. It’ll never happen though. It’s too much like a common sense solution.
Having a ‘black box’ fitted to your vehicle is all very well, but how do the powers that be intend to;
1) Ensure everyone has one fitted to their vehicle without a huge enforcement programme.
2) Deal with the gargantuan data volumes required for vehicle tracking technology.
3) Ensure that this is not going to be another Government IT ‘white elephant’ project (Passport Office, CSA, compile your own lists).
4) Find the money with all these other grandiose schemes; such as Brown’s asinine “Relieve African Poverty” that they want to throw even more hard earned taxpayers money at.
As an issue, traffic volumes will not be manageable until the powers that be address the true problem which is based around people working 9 to 5 ‘Bankers hours’, which puts enormous demands on the transport infrastructure at given times of day. It’s just sheer weight of traffic (Ever seen an Oxford Street ‘People Jam around the six o’clock marker?) So without a huge cull, how do you spread the demand on the system?
The answer seems fairly simple given the rapidly altering pattern of our lives, more shift working and flexitime. Start school hours earlier (Or later) to begin with; thus shift the ‘school run’ and move 20% of peak hour traffic outside peak hours. Government offices might spread the load by having two start times, say 8am and 10am with finish times at 4:30 and 7pm respectively. The result of such changes would be better public service cover and a reduced burden on the system at peak times.
The reduced congestion would my life easier. It’ll never happen though. It’s too much like a common sense solution.
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