Pay by the Mile Road Tolls in UK
Discussion
Richard-D said:
Infrastructure is the sticking point. In principle it seems fair enough but how do you implement it? Toll roads, vehicle tracking, numberplate recognition/cameras?
The fairest and cheapest way I can think of is to base road tax on vehicle weight. That information is already available through the DVLA and doesn't require the building of new infrastructure.
edit: Although I'd like them to do it via black box. That way I could remove them from all my cars and connect them to a charger on a shelf in my garage.
Yes, of course that will work. It’s not like anybody on implementing the project will think if such a highly complex method of defeating the system...The fairest and cheapest way I can think of is to base road tax on vehicle weight. That information is already available through the DVLA and doesn't require the building of new infrastructure.
edit: Although I'd like them to do it via black box. That way I could remove them from all my cars and connect them to a charger on a shelf in my garage.
Edited by Richard-D on Tuesday 15th December 09:51
Megaflow said:
Richard-D said:
Infrastructure is the sticking point. In principle it seems fair enough but how do you implement it? Toll roads, vehicle tracking, numberplate recognition/cameras?
The fairest and cheapest way I can think of is to base road tax on vehicle weight. That information is already available through the DVLA and doesn't require the building of new infrastructure.
edit: Although I'd like them to do it via black box. That way I could remove them from all my cars and connect them to a charger on a shelf in my garage.
Yes, of course that will work. It’s not like anybody on implementing the project will think if such a highly complex method of defeating the system...The fairest and cheapest way I can think of is to base road tax on vehicle weight. That information is already available through the DVLA and doesn't require the building of new infrastructure.
edit: Although I'd like them to do it via black box. That way I could remove them from all my cars and connect them to a charger on a shelf in my garage.
Edited by Richard-D on Tuesday 15th December 09:51
Low Pro said:
Why this isn’t on Pistonheads front page is beyond me
I have to laugh at those that think in the long term, we'll all be regularly launching fast EVs off the lights and zipping about freely and cheaply at warp speed. Even if government don't directly suck any fun out of driving, insurance companies will by voiding your cover if you disable an automatic speed limiter or whatever.
robinessex said:
I this is introduced, can I deduct from my payment vehicle damage/pothole/mile then?
No more than we can now while paying through the nose in fuel duty VED Council tax and gawd knows what else. Our roads are not fit for purpose full stop. But we’re British so we do nothing about it ....
Zed 44 said:
Charge by the mile from one MOT date to the next. Small incremental supplements for vehicle weight and CO2 emissions.
And seriously, how many would actually try to clock their cars, especially if the penalty for doing so was jail.
This is the simplest approach, and coupled with a level of ANPR could easily work out people who were clocking. If you show up for the MOT and your ODO says you’ve done five miles, the fact that you are pinged on the M4 every morning would be bit of a giveaway. Penalties of “we’ll crush your car and fine you £20k” would be enough to encourage good behaviour.And seriously, how many would actually try to clock their cars, especially if the penalty for doing so was jail.
Trying to retrofit old cars with GPS trackers would be impossible to police.
Cameras everywhere would cost an absurd amount of money.
I can see a special electricity tariff being introduced purely for EV charging, that costs several times the standard rate.
Electricity is taxed at 5%, petrol at more than 100%. It will be like economy 7 in reverse and cars will have software than prevents you charging from anywhere else.
Commercial chargers at motorway services are already charging the equivalent per mile to
Petrol.
Electricity is taxed at 5%, petrol at more than 100%. It will be like economy 7 in reverse and cars will have software than prevents you charging from anywhere else.
Commercial chargers at motorway services are already charging the equivalent per mile to
Petrol.
Cliffe60 said:
I can see a special electricity tariff being introduced purely for EV charging, that costs several times the standard rate.
Electricity is taxed at 5%, petrol at more than 100%. It will be like economy 7 in reverse and cars will have software than prevents you charging from anywhere else.
Commercial chargers at motorway services are already charging the equivalent per mile to
Petrol.
unenforceableElectricity is taxed at 5%, petrol at more than 100%. It will be like economy 7 in reverse and cars will have software than prevents you charging from anywhere else.
Commercial chargers at motorway services are already charging the equivalent per mile to
Petrol.
people on the ball will just replace their smart meter with a dumb charging point and program the car when to charge, or use a 3 pin plug etc.
something people need to understand ROAD PRICING HAS ALWAYS BEEN COMING, its part of the EU road map for cars, everything required is built into modern cars (3G/4G data coms and sat nav), they have been sneaky in rolling it out
Phase 1 - SOS auto emergency calling in the event of an accident (this gets the base hardware in the car)
Phase 2 - Enhance the functionality of the above to automatically limit cars to the speed limit (this ads road maps to the system)
Phase 3 - Enable the system for road pricing and automatic issuing of fines for speeding, road usage billing etc.
London has shown how easy and profitable it is even with a basic camera based system, and there is nothing politician like more than milking motorists
What ever they charge EVs in Tax, ICE cars will also pay plus extra (most likely a higher rate to travel in road priced zones and VED as well).
Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Wednesday 21st April 10:38
Far Cough said:
Looking at what a cock up they made of a simple track and trace app, I cannot see the government getting this sorted anytime soon. The simple solution is to put the duty on fuel so that those who use more of it , pay more. So simple.
Tax on EV`s is coming as they become the new normal and the government realises they need to get some revenue from the new increasingly popular option.
By far the simplest option would be to increase fuel duty and for the EVs a separate tariff for recharging, however, as this doesn't expand the reach of the Government/Civil Service, won't allow real time tracking, doesn't justify the huge spend on the GPS satellites, doesn't justify expanding the Civil Service headcount to manage all the additional data and most importantly, doesn't punish the motorist in any meaningful way, it won't happen. Tax on EV`s is coming as they become the new normal and the government realises they need to get some revenue from the new increasingly popular option.
What will happen is some bloated Public Sector monstrosity to track and bill (occasionally correctly) the motorist for each time they dare to venture onto the road. Existing cars will have to have some random piece of electronics fitted by "trained" technicians that absolutely won't interfere with the complex and varied electronics already fitted to the vehicle by the manufacturer, (new cars will have to have this fitted by the manufacturer). All instances of speeding will be rigidly enforced, and no doubt councils will be lowering limits with abandon. And, of course, the burden of proof will rest entirely on the motorist. Charged for a round trip to Scotland whilst the car was locked in the garage and you were on holiday in Italy, prove it, charged for speeding whilst you were stuck in a traffic jam, prove it.
MKnight702 said:
and for the EVs a separate tariff for recharging
i use a 13amp 3pin plug charger, how will you know when its a car charging and not my dishwasher?they also want to encourage EV purchase so they wont tax anything that is solely EV related
far easier to stick up ANPR cameras on selected commuter routes like mways to auto generate bills
inital road pricing does not need to cover every mile of every road, you can simply create control areas: £10 to enter the M25, £7.50 to enter any other mway, £5 to use any river crossing (in addition to its normal charge), £2.50 to use a major road intersection. Very easy to setup and would cover 90% of commuter drivers, and you could offer a discount for EV cars
Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Wednesday 21st April 10:50
Dave Hedgehog said:
i use a 13amp 3pin plug charger, how will you know when its a car charging and not my dishwasher?
they also want to encourage EV purchase so they wont tax anything that is solely EV related
far easier to stick up ANPR cameras on selected commuter routes like mways to auto generate bills
inital road pricing does not need to cover every mile of every road, you can simply create control areas: £10 to enter the M25, £7.50 to enter any other mway, £5 to use any river crossing (in addition to its normal charge), £2.50 to use a major road intersection. Very easy to setup and would cover 90% of commuter drivers, and you could offer a discount for EV cars
The charging thing could be got around if the manufacturers were made to put a tamper proof, non standard plug on the charging cable, this would stop most of the fraud. they also want to encourage EV purchase so they wont tax anything that is solely EV related
far easier to stick up ANPR cameras on selected commuter routes like mways to auto generate bills
inital road pricing does not need to cover every mile of every road, you can simply create control areas: £10 to enter the M25, £7.50 to enter any other mway, £5 to use any river crossing (in addition to its normal charge), £2.50 to use a major road intersection. Very easy to setup and would cover 90% of commuter drivers, and you could offer a discount for EV cars
Edited by Dave Hedgehog on Wednesday 21st April 10:50
The thing about taxing the fuel (electricity or liquid) is that it is harder to avoid, "muddy" number plates or fake ones can defeat cameras but you must have fuel to use a vehicle. Plus for added "green" points the bigger and more fuel hungry the more you pay, the more you drive the more you pay, lots of short inefficient journeys round town, yep, the more you pay. The infrastructure needs very little change, it would be cheap to implement and almost free to administer and it doesn't require huge amounts of tracking data to be gathered, analysed and retained "securely", so unfortunately there is absolutely no way this will be the method chosen.
Edited to add, I believe that this is driven more by the Civil Service than the Government, since Governments change but this drive to monitor and control the public doesn't. This is due to the fact that, as all Public Servants know, the reason they are called Public Servants is because the public are there to serve them.
Edited by MKnight702 on Thursday 22 April 10:39
MKnight702 said:
The charging thing could be got around if the manufacturers were made to put a tamper proof, non standard plug on the charging cable, this would stop most of the fraud.
So, you're proposing that every car manufactured for the UK market, worldwide, has some sort of 'special socket' that only your 'UK government special plugs' can fit?Edited by MKnight702 on Thursday 22 April 10:39
Think about that for one moment.
That wouldn't be "non standard". It'd be fitted to, literally, _millions_ for cars. It'd be the textbook definition of "standard". Hundreds of manufacturers would need to make them to be able to deliver the millions of necessary charging points. You'd be able to order them in nil-time-flat from alibaba; the Chinese don't give two stuffs about patents, let alone any idea that a tiny island's government's hope you won't grey market things meeting a particular socket standard. And notwithstanding nefarious types would simply wander the streets at night and lop them off others' charging points with secateurs.
"Special Electric" is a complete non-starter, especially when you think that a) We have a big enough problem with "red diesel" where there's actual, real evidence you've broken the rules and b) Just because the battery exists in a car, doesn't mean it's going to get used for driving. Huge efforts are being made to let you use your car's battery as a grid-connected energy store. Charging is merely the act of applying a voltage across two terminals.
Fuel duty is worth about £32bn to the exchequer. That's about 4% of their entire revenue. When that goes away, where do you think the shortfall would come from, in a way that preserves the principle that, predominantly, what it costs you is in proportion to how much you use it (as fuel duty does, all other things being equal).
"Special Electricity" won't work. It's just wishful thinking.
I doubt "general taxation" is going to be a politically acceptable solution.
I doubt "charged annually based on your odometer reading" (such as @ MOT) is going to be a socially workable solution. Many people can't budget 'till payday, let alone getting 75% of their annual fuel bill delivered in one go. And there's a lot of opportunity for fraud.
So you're left with... road charging. Not only as it's the only real technical option, it opens up capabilities that simple fuel duties cannot. Such as
- Time of use charging. Peak train tickets cost a lot more. Wouldn't it be nice if you could make your morning commute less congested by giving those who don't need to be doing that journey at that time a reason to pick a different one?
- Selective Availability. We already sort-of do this with rising bollards -- either road closures by time of day or access for particular use types. My experience is they're expensive to put in and are forever breaking. Our street is about to implement a road closure (LTN); on the plus side, it will stop rat-running of commuters through a conservation area containing roads barely wide enough for 2 cars, let alone two lorries. On the negative side, it means one of my journeys gets about a mile longer. Road charging technology could eventually stop the former, but allow the latter (based on it knowing where I live, so permitting that journey).
These are big benefits. The technology is available today. The only remaining question is the timescale.
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