Nick <[email protected]> wrote: >Adrian Stott wrote:
>> "Ian Cardinal" <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >>> Most of the evidence points to the fact that a good, cheap and reliable >>> Public Transport system is what changes people's behaviour, not penal >>> payment. >> >> Not quite. What would make people change mode is a better >> alternative. I.e. an alternative to the car that gives them a better >> balance of cost, convenience, and quality. At present, the balance is >> hugely in favour of the car in most cases. > >But in the bit of my post that you snipped, I pointed out that to use >the bus that goes door to door will take me a good hour a day more than >driving does, and costs more than the actual marginal costs of motoring. Yes. Using most current bus services is hugely less convenient than using a car. That's one reason why people tend to drive. As I've mentioned previously, the bus is an obsolete model of transit. I'm fairly sure the self-driving taxi will replace it before too long. That would provide a service that would be both better and cheaper than that of the private car, so I would expect people to shift to it very quickly. >> In fact, the way we pay for road tax and car insurance tends to make >> the per-journey cost by car cheaper than most transit. Hence one of >> my reasons for supporting road charging (to replace road tax and fuel >> duty), which would transfer that cost from the vehicle to the trip. > >Fuel duty already does just this. No, it doesn't. The crucial shortcoming of fuel duty is that it is not specific to the road/time being used. Therefore it discourages driving in total, but not driving specifically where there is congestion which is what is needed. >And we did see some reduced car use when fuel prices soared. Yes, but only nationally. Congestion is a local problem. >But the same would apply to any road tolls >argument that didn't involve actually pulling up at barriers and handing >over the hard cash. Not so. Schemes have been designed that would show the driver the congestion charge incurred as he drove (e.g. one km at a time). >> By increasing the cost of car journeys (i.e. making the user pay the >> real cost of the congestion they cause by driving > >I don't follow that "ie" at all. The amount of congestion I, and I >alone, cause is almost none, so costs almost nothing. Definitely not so. I saw a well-supported estimate 15 or so years ago thyat in busy traffic each added car caused a congestion cost (on the community) of about $0.75/km. That number will clearly be significantly higher today. And that number is what each driver should pay. >Actually you're proposing a swinging tax to change behaviour. No. What I'm proposing is a user charge (a very different concept from a tax; you can't choose whether you pay a tax), or, if you like, the user paying for the costs he imposes. That would provide the missing negative feedback in the traffic system, which is the essential feature that prevents over-consumption in all supply/demand systems. Yes, it would change behaviour. Of course. That's what it's meant to do, and that's what has to happen if congestion is to be eliminated. However, it needn't increase the overall cost of car usage for the individual, as the revenue it would generate could be a replacement for the current fuel excise duties and road taxes. In concept, this is roughly similar to the (usually mis-named) "green taxes" now being proposed (although, again, it's not a tax), which would replace general revenue collection with revenue generated by charges related to behaviour the government wants to discourage. Think of the charges now in place for disposing of excavated materials. >So you are proposing a big pile of government intervention to sort it out. This concept would indeed involve action by government. Unavoidably, as government has set up, and runs, the current inadequate system (road taxes, fuel duty, etc.). Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
