The mayor said he "totally forgot" to pay the £8-a-day charge in the required 48 hours after he drove into central London last month.
"I got done by my own system,"
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7817530.stm
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He is being conned that the technology does not exist to move to an account based system. The 'Kenbuster' already uses this system. Ken used to use the same very weak argument, despite the existence of the 'Kenbuster'.
HJ
Edited by Honestjohn on 11/01/2009 at 20:15
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Yes, the problem with accounts is that TfL would then lose out on the fines, without which the whole scheme would come financially unstuck ...
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Why does it need any technology other than the central computer?
My car is registered for the C-charge, so why can't I just pay upfront something like £40 and have the system debit my balance every day it sees me in the zone? It could text or email me to say I been spotted, and tell me what balance I was left in my account. That's already available on Irish toll roads such as the M50 westlink, where drivers have the option of paying on account or after using the camera-scanned toll-road.
The only downside of that approach in London is that it would shift the system from user-declaration with backup detection to reliance solely on detection, and detection may not yet be reliable enough. Unlike a toll-road (where's it's easy enough to detect all vehicles passing one point), the C-charge applies to a lot of roads, and technology can't scan them all. That would in theory make it possible for drivers to find routes which were not adequately covered by cameras, and avoid the charge.
So in the unless there is 100% C-charge camera coverage, maybe the £199 Kenbuster is the only solution.
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>>He became "a victim of this wretched system" by failing to pay the toll within two days.
The mayor said he wanted to move to an account-based system of congestion charge payment "when the technology comes in".
"That would get away from the crazy system where you suddenly get clobbered by these fines," he said.
And now he's got the incentive to apply it. ;>)
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So that's another week before he will be able to afford a comb!
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Good to hear that the mayor is making a personal contribution to the spiralling cost of the Olympics.
I mean, that's what the C-charge is all about, isn`t it? Or am I missing something.....?
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The reason it would never move to an account-based system is because you wouldn't get caught unless you crossed into/out of the c-zone. And even when crossing, your numberplate might be hidden by a bus.
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Mapmaker could be partially right. If the number plate is not read/seen then they do not know you're there. The current system relies on cameras on poles so not fool proof.
The current system barely covers the cost to operate it - it does not make a profit. It is an expensive system to run. The Manchester one that we nearly got here would have cost a lot more.
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The current system barely covers the cost to operate it - it does not make a profit. It is an expensive system to run.
2007
Runing costs £131 million
Charges paid by motorists £195 million
operating Profit £64 million
fines £73 million
total profit £137 million
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AE - what was the cost of installing the London CC scheme?
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IF Wikipediea is right, Mapmaker may in fact be wrong.
While private drivers are obliged to pay the charge either the day before, on the day or on the following day, whether they are seen to enter the zone or not, the same does not apply to fleets of business vehicles. A business can register a group of vehicles with TfL, and is charged £7 per visit for all vehicles in the fleet detected by the cameras. In May 2005, businessman Miguel Camacho set up fivepounds.co.uk, whose sole function was to sign up private drivers to their "fleet", thus offering the convenience of not having to pay the charge pro-actively, avoiding fines in the case of a forgotten journey and also potentially getting a "free journey" if undetected by the cameras. TfL, which obtains nearly half of its net revenue from fines, moved quickly to quash the loophole, by demanding that fleet operators provide the registration document for each vehicle in their fleet. Fivepounds went out of business on 26 February 2006.[10]
Wikipedia also states en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge that the net positive revenue over the first five years of the scheme amounted to a princely £10m - including capital costs.
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All of this is very interesting. If I had time, I would make a couple of requests under Freedom of Information legislation:
Question 1: How many drivers who paid the CC last year were NOT actually captured by CCTV images? (My point being that, aside from the fact that many cars get in "under the radar" a lot of people must have ended up paying by mistake, e.g. as they did not actually enter the zone, or not in the operating time.)
Question 2: How many erroneous fines were found to have been levied on "innocent" motorists (those who had suffered a faulty recognition, or a cloned number)?
Adding together these two figures should produce a rough figure of percentage of inaccuracy.
Even a "mere" 1% inaccuracy adds up to over 1.37 million GBP, stolen from the hard-pressed British motorist. Food for thought.
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AE - what was the cost of installing the London CC scheme?
200million in 2003
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