London congestion charge changes threatened with judicial review

The London Evening Standard reports that a group of environmental activists and former Mayor Ken Livingstone are threatening judicial review of Mayor Boris Johnson's decision to scrap the Western zone of the London Congestion Charge.

"Clean Air in London" is a ginger group comprising Friends of the Earth, Environment Protection UK, ClientEarth, the Campaign for Better Transport, London Forum of Amenity and Civil Societies with Ken Livingstone and former Green mayoral candidate Sian Berry.   It has an explicitly political agenda regarding reducing overall levels of emissions and regards the scrapping of the Western extension to the congestion charge as likely to increase emissions.

The Evening Standard report claims that NOx and particulate emissions will rise 3-4% according to Transport for London estimates once the charge zone is reduced in size.  The campaign group claims that this will break EU laws requiring action to be taken on ensuring pollutants don't exceed maximum WHO standards in public spaces.

The background to this is that former Mayor Ken Livingstone, against some advice, decided to expand his successful central London congestion charge zone to include the wealthy western suburbs of Kensington and Chelsea in 2007.  This reduced traffic volumes in that zone, although it did mean the 90% discount for residents was applied to some of the wealthiest London residents who faced a reduced charge for driving into central London.

Current Mayor Boris Johnson campaigned on abolishing the Western extension, which was seen by some as Ken Livingstone's tax on rich Londoners who did not vote for him.   It was seen by businesses just within the charging zone as punitive, because the London congestion charge period is from 0700-1800, meaning no respite at all from the charge during off peak hours.

Johnson's consultation saw a majority support abolishing the zone, so he decided to do so, despite the loss of millions of pounds in revenue.   In effect the London congestion charging zone will shrink by around half, but the price for the central zone is to increase from £8 to £10 (US$15.80) and a range of other changes are being introduced (such as tightening discounts for low emission vehicles).

Whether a judicial review is undertaken or not is unclear, and will no doubt depend on legal advice to the activists, but still it raises the real issue of what now to do about traffic in the affected area.   I don't think the Western extension as it was introduced was the right option, but London's traffic congestion problems are not eased by the central zone alone.  Nor can they be eased by pricing alone.   However, I doubt if they can be eased without more pricing.

London congestion charge zones, Western extension is the left half, original central zone on the right. Dark blue routes are the free "bypass" routes that complete the ring roads around the two zones (vehicles are not charged for using those routes).

London tolls in the 18th century

Spatial Analysis blog has published a map of private turnpikes that surrounded many parts of London in the 18th century.  Some commentators said it shows London had congestion charging "centuries ago" when actually it shows how London's roads were built by private enterprise and user pays.  Bearing in mind of course that this is in the age before motorised land transport!

18th century London turnpike map

Head of First Group supports congestion charging for Aberdeen

The Aberdeen Press and Journal reports that Tim O'Toole, the new chief executive of First Group says a congestion charge in Aberdeen would see improved bus services.  The local authority had considered and rejected the idea, although it would apparently generate £2.7 million (US$4.2 million) in net revenue per annum.  He believes it would be the single biggest move to improve service reliability.

Given Scotland's devolved government has abolished tolls on all roads as it prefers tax funded roads, it is unlikely to make much difference, but still it is important to have the point raised.  Clearly the key improvements for buses would be faster and more reliable operations with less congestion, and higher demand would allow for more services to be introduced (even without subsidies, as almost all bus services in Aberdeen are provided commercially).

Congestion pricing explained by video

Lewis Lehe was an economics student who decided to use video to explain some economic concepts. These videos were featured on Rustwire here.  He is keen on the concept of congestion pricing, and frankly this is one of the clearest ways of explaining the issues around rationing road use by price.  I think these are excellent.

How do you price a road? Half res from Lewis on Vimeo.

Is congestion pricing fair? from Lewis on Vimeo.

Just imagine the difference videos like this would have made with debates on road pricing in the UK, New York and elsewhere.  Lewis has exceptional communications talent.

Growth in toll roads in the Philippines

Manila Bulletin reports that the Philippines will see a major expansion in toll roads and PPP highways as the country continues to improve its infrastructure.

Ramoncito S. Fernandez, president and CEO of Metro Pacific Tollways Corporation (MPTC).  MPTC is the holding company that has under its wing the Manila North Tollways Corporation (MNTC), the builder and concessionaire of the North Luzon Expressway, and the Tollways Management Corporation (TMC), the operations and maintenance (O&M) operator of both the NLEx and the Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway.  

A range of new toll road projects are expected including the 13.2km North Luzon-South Luzon Connector, but there are also light rail projects expected to attract PPP investments.

Yet again a developing country sees merit in using private capital to build and run highways and to charge directly for use, funny how so many developed countries find this a big challenge.

14 December day of decision on San Francisco congestion pricing

San Francisco Business Times notes that the San Francisco County Transportation Authority board will decide 14 December whether to commission further studies for a congestion pricing pilot.  The pilot is  expected to last up to 12 months, but not start till 2015.

Will Taiwan be first with mandatory OBUs for national freeways?

Taiwan has had barrier controlled toll highways for some years, with its own bespoke developed Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system (although not electronic free flow).   Now it is moving to make it compulsory  to have OBUs by 2012 as it moves towards a distance charging system.   It is understood that this means distance measured by segment, similar to the LKW-Maut in Germany.  However, unlike the LKW-Maut it will be a DSRC (dedicated short range communication, otherwise know as tag and beacon) based measurement of distance.

The proposal is controversial, because the bespoke tags are expensive and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) is still to be used and available.  In principle, the key benefit is to get rid of toll stations and the congestion they can create, but beyond that charging by distance will be closer to usage than ever before.  

If Taiwan achieves conversion to full electronic free flow on a nationwide freeway network for cars it will be a world first, as the only free flow network systems that exist are for heavy vehicles only.

(In the context of this post I am treating Taiwan, Republic of China as a sovereign state distinct from the People's Republic of China, acknowledging that there are two sovereign governments on the territory known as China.  So as a result I am using the convention that Taiwan is, de facto, a sovereign state).

London Congestion Charge to offer detection based accounts

Until 4 January 2011, the only way individual motorists could pay for the London congestion charge was to prepay - in effect a declaration based model whereby one paid (either online, by phone or over the counter) for a day or more use of the roads within the congestion charge zone.   If you didn't drive on that day, it didn't matter.  This prepayment meant that money was collected regardless of usage, and meant that earlier inaccuracies with Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology did not weaken overall revenues.  

You see one of the earlier issues was that the cameras originally introduced in 2003 only reliably detected and read a number plate around 60% of the time.  Given the average trip usually saw a vehicle pass by 2.5 cameras, this wasn't much of a problem, but by requiring everyone to prepay it eliminated the issue except for enforcement purposes.  However, since then the cameras have been replaced and the accuracy levels have significantly improved (I believe around 75%-80% on average but cannot confirm). 

One of the pledges of the current London Mayor, Boris Johnson, on being elected was to make it easier to comply with the congestion charge.  So from 4 January 2011 for a £10 registration fee, motorists will be able to set up detection based accounts which will charge based purely on usage.   In other words if your vehicle is detected within the charging zone during charging hours (and you are registered) you will be charged automatically with a £1 discount (reason presumably being because the payment details already exist, and automatic debits are cheaper to process than individual one off payments).

This change is one of several occurring on that date which includes:

- An increase in the base charge to £10 (£9 for detection based accounts);

- Termination of the Western extension charging zone, reducing the congestion charge to its original size.

No doubt this will reduce compliance costs for users, and will be of great benefit to motorists.  However, the financials wont add up unless the savings from automatic direct debits are more than enough to make up the losses from the handful of vehicles that wont be detected on their trips.  Even 75% accuracy of ANPR cameras (and I would have thought London should be pushing 85% nowadays) with average 2.5 readings should be enough.

I will write more about the other London changes later.

Details of these changes are in this leaflet.

Ohio next major toll road privatisation?

Associated Press is reporting that the newly elected Ohio Governor, John Kasich (Republican) has said he is interested in privatising the Ohio Turnpike Commission, which is responsible for the 388km long Ohio Turnpike toll road.   The road runs east-west from Indiana to Pennsylvania, and is the I-76, I-80 and I-90. 

The privatisation is being investigated, with one concern being whether the price obtained in current market conditions would be worth it - although given the size and scale there is little doubt it would raise well over US$1 billion.   The toll road fully funds its own operation and maintenance and is so successful that the previous Governor diverted surplus revenue from the road to fund other road improvements in the state.

Hopefully if sold the new owners will be able to invest in new capacity and to vary charges to manage congestion.  Such privatisations should enable owners to optimise utilisation of their assets.

In any case, privatising the Ohio Turnpike would be an enormous transaction, rivalling the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Roads, and showing once again, that government need not finance or manage highways.

UPDATE:  One report states that a sale is unlikely according to a spokesman for the Governor elect, because the state would not get a good price in the current investment climate.

San Francisco congestion pricing debate heats up

As reported on 17 November, one of the most significant road pricing proposals in the USA today are the two options presented by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to introduce cordon pricing.  

One is the central city cordon (right), which would see an AM peak (0600-0900) charge of US$3 with a PM peak (1500-1900) charge of US$3.  The charge would be capped at US$6 and those who pay tolls on the Bay and Golden Gate Bridges would get a US$1 discount.   Residents, the disabled and "low income" drivers would get 50% discounts.  For what it is worth, it is my preference although I'd want to be sure that roads to bypass this cordon were clearly marked and capable of handling through traffic.  Indeed the appraisal done of this option indicates it is better, although I am not fully convinced of those results.

The second option is the southern cordon (right) which imposes charges at the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, and more controversially one at the administrative boundary of San Francisco County at the southern end.  The charges would be the same.  

Now I have a few problems with the concepts, in particular I don't think you win motorists over by spending the majority of the money raised on modes other than roads (public transit needs serious structural and governance reform in San Francisco so I would prefer it was reformed before it got more subsidies), but in principle this is a significant leap forward.

San Francisco Streetsblog outlines some of the more irrational arguments, but also the media coverage that evades the facts around the proposals.   

One that I wanted to highlight is that by Adrienne Tissler who bizarrely argued that the proposals would increase congestion because of peak spreading (she didn't call it that because she doesn't actually understand it).  She made this astonishing contradictory assertion:

Drivers who can will adjust their drive times to avoid the toll hours, creating congestion during nontoll hours. This just means bad traffic all day, at all hours.

So she figures, correctly, that some drivers will change drive times, but she claims there will be "bad traffic all day at all hours".  However, what does she think happens when people change driving times?  There is less traffic at the most congested times.   Presumably the charging hours have been set because at other times there is capacity in the road network that can be used without creating significant delays.   Otherwise, Adrienne Tissler, 2010 vice chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, doesn't understand basic economics because she thinks increasing the price of a basic commodity INCREASES demand.

In NO case where congestion charging has been introduced has congestion suddenly worsened at other times or on bypass routes (that will be the next argument - the quaint notion that when faced with a charge, motorists will avoid the place they were intending to go to in the first place, clogging up other roads).

As I mentioned before, if you want all of the publicly available information about the San Francisco congestion charging proposals it is here.

I firmly believe that the county line proposal is not worth pursuing, but it will be the one argued by most opponents because it doesn't really match where congestion is, rather it is simply an administrative boundary.   If it gets dropped then the San Mateo County opposition may be diluted as one report indicated there wont be opposition to a central city focused charge.

However, the conventional arguments will come out.  The fear it will damage retail (when the charge doesn't cover the daytime interpeak).  The fear it will hurt the poor (some of whom don't drive, and it ignores the proposed discounts for residents and the low income).  The fear it is just another tax (which it arguably is, but for which the revenue will be put into a cash starved transport system). 

Yes a lot of detail needs to be ironed out, including how and whether all the discounts can be affordably introduced (I have designed a low income discount scheme for road pricing and it is far from cheap if it isn't to become an easy source of fraud), and how the roads adjacent to a cordon (and through it) will be managed.  However, San Francisco has an opportunity to show the rest of the USA how basic fundamental free market principles of pricing can be used for the greater economic and environmental good of a city, when applied to roads.