London Road Toll Plan, United Kingdom

The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, plans to introduce road tolls in London as part of his Transport for London strategy to relieve traffic congestion. The congestion charging scheme is likely to be introduced on 17 February 2003. The congestion charging system will involve the installation of a large number of check-in points with television cameras to check vehicles' license plates. The congestion charging scheme is the most ambitious in the world in terms of scale. It is has proven to be very politically controversial and is likely to remain a much debated topic in the near future.

CONGESTION CHARGING LEVELS

The proposals for the introduction of road tolls in London will mean that motorists wishing to drive through central London will have to buy a £5-a-day permit from petrol stations or newsagents to display in their windscreen. Other payment options include weekly (£25), monthly (£110) or annual (£1,250) passes.

TRAFFIC WARDEN RECRUITMENT

An extra 400 traffic wardens will be recruited to enforce the toll, placing fixed penalty notices on any permit-less vehicle parked within the zone or stopped by the police at roadside checkpoints. A report by London First suggests a minimum fine of around £75.

CHARGING EXEMPTIONS

The charging is aimed primarily at commuting traffic and will operate between 7am and 6:30pm on weekdays only. Emergency vehicles (including doctors on call), buses, some "green" vehicles and disabled badgeholders would be exempted, as would licensed taxis. As residents account for only 6% of journeys into central London they will be eligible for a 90% discount on weekly, monthly and yearly tickets, paying the normal fee for day tickets.

TOLL BOUNDARY

The boundary for the tolled area will lie just inside of Marylebone, Euston, Pentonville and City roads to the North. Commercial Street and Tower Bridge in the East and Vauxhall Bridge Road, Hyde Park Corner and Park Lane in the West. The southern limit will be the River Thames.

BOUNDARY CONCERNS

The Whitehall working party, appointed by the Government Office for London recommended that the zone should extend South of the River Thames to Elephant and Castle, Kennington Lane and Vauxhall Bridge. The Mayor opposes this idea, as it would include many low-income residents in the Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark.

The exclusion of this segment exposes a potential flaw in the scheme because through-traffic may seek routes round the charging zone to escape payment. The Automobile Association suggests that the boroughs bordering the Toll boundary will require a great deal of persuasion and investment in new traffic lay-outs before they support a central toll zone.

TOLL ENFORCEMENT

A computer recognition system will be introduced that can correctly interpret about 80% of digital images of licence plates captured in normal traffic conditions. This proportion can be increased to 90% with manual intervention. The computer then checks the number plate against database of vehicles that have valid permits. Vehicles without valid permits are traced through the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) to find the registered keeper, who is then fined.

The system of enforcement depends on being able to trace the keeper of violating vehicles. This does present some problems, as the DVLA does not have valid keeper details for some 20% of vehicles in parts of inner London.

TOLL NON-COMPLIANCE

The estimates used in the Mayor's transport strategy suggest that there will be a non-compliance rate of 10%. Of which, an estimated 80% of violators would be traced and served with a penalty notice.

The Mayor has outlined that there will be numerous warning signs as a driver approaches the toll zone in order to reduce the risk of drivers straying into the zone accidentally. In addition, if any drivers enter the zone without a permit, they can still pay up until midnight and not receive a penalty notice. If they pay before 6:30pm, the price of the permit will be the same as if they had brought it in advance, but if they pay between 7pm and midnight it would be double the normal fee.