Satellite-Assisted European Road Tolls Next? 288
Roland Piquepaille writes "In 'Pay-as-you-go motoring just around the corner,' the European Space Agency (ESA) says that "road tolls could be made fairer if satellite-assisted distance pricing is implemented." Experiments are currently underway in Ireland, Portugal and Germany, before a possible extension to other countries. Potential benefits of such a road tolling system would be fairer implementation of charging on a 'pay for use' basis. All these experiments are using the US-operated Global Positioning System (GPS). But in 2010, when the system is fully implemented, it will use the Galileo satellite system."
How easy to disable? (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing that scares me (Score:5, Insightful)
As soon as it is mandatory for cars to have transmitting GPS recievers to track their movements on highways, then it will become standard issue in cities and other areas. Call me paranoid, but I don't WANT the government tracking me like that.
Second, along the same lines, there's the potential that the system could be used to issue things like speeding tickets and other traffic citations. I guess this is another case of the fact that people appreciate the right to BEND the law. There are some toll-systems in place now that give speeding citations if you cover the distance between two toll-booths in too short a time, but as far as I'm aware their deployment is limited.
Any comments?
Stewey
Okay... (Score:3, Insightful)
Good Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course we wouldn't want SUV owners pay more per mile than economy car owners do we? That wouldn't be fair!
How is this really different (Score:5, Insightful)
..from current toll-road models?
For instance, when you get on the Mass Pike (the main line of the Pike, not the extension into Boston), you get a ticket. You turn in the ticket when you get off, and the toll is computed based on how far you travel (a rough formula is distance in miles times approximately 3.5 cents/mile with a minimum toll of 25 cents).
Barrier toll highways (a la the Garden State) substitute fairly regularly spaced toll booths charging a constant (and higher than the ticket type) rate.
In both cases, it's charging for the amount of road usage.
Re:One thing that scares me (Score:2, Insightful)
> people appreciate the right to BEND the law.
It's not enforcing the law that's the concern, the interest in these systems is to improve revenues, using the laws to justify extortion.
Issuing speeding tickets is very, very rarely done in the name of safety, which is why they exist to begin with. If you want an example of this, get a speeding ticket sometime and challenge it in court. It's staggeringly simple to get the fine dropped. But of course you have to pay the court fees.
To digress, using these systems to fine people is more of inevitability than a theoretical question. If it can funnel cash into the hands of the municipality, it WILL be used.
low tech solution (Score:1, Insightful)
Tell-tale sign (Score:3, Insightful)
Even given privacy/personal liberties angle to be completely aside (which I am not ready to do just yet!), the only "fair" way to implement such a system would be if "they" would promise to take less tax on private citizen as a result of that. No, "they" just want to get more bucks to spend on bureocracy... (relating to the old argument "If not for the Govt., you would not have the modern highway system")
Paul B.
Why not just tax fuel? (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, wait, Europe already does that.... HOW many $/gallon?
But really, some of the proposals are to tax what were freeways -- yet it is clear better for the environment and safer if people use freeway-style roads instead of local roads.
Re:Good Idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple... (Score:4, Insightful)
For the simple answer, a tax on fuel rather than miles "unfairly" nails those who chose to destroy our environment (quicker than the rest) by driving big gas-guzzlers.
Of course, one could counter with the idea that gas-guzzlers also tend to weigh more, causing more damage to the road, thus warranting a higher tax regardless of the environmental impact, but, don't say that too loud around the current US oligarchy...
Now me, I think we should tax based on total time spent on the road, to penalize grannies out to cause their regular Sunday afternoon traffic-jam.
Re:How easy to disable? (Score:5, Insightful)
Users who wish to by-pass being taxed on the fuel they use can already make the switch to propane, methane, alcohol, hydrogen, and a number of alternatives which i'd argue they deserve a reward if their fuel solution has a postive impact on air quality.
Users who don't drive as much don't pay as much tax. Users who drive a hell of alot pay a hell of alot.
Low tech, simple, difficult to circumvent, and already implemented. Who could ask for anything more?
I imagine that we will always consider toll roads in order to actually pay for specific roads that we can't convience the general public that we all actually benifit from. That's all well and good, but generaly speaking if you want to employ a general use fee for the roads you use, take the freaking fuel and don't bother launching high tech tracking devices. Barcodes and or radio tags would be perfectly dandy to maintain flow and charge a specific use tax for toll roads. If you really want to maintain your privacy, keep a cash only lane open.
A Solution in Search of a Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
You can track vehicle positions. It's much harder to track which roads have been used.
I've done a bunch of work with GPS-based vehicle tracking systems--and it is entirely feasible to track vehicle positions. However--it is something else entirely to track which roads a given vehicle has used. The problem isn't with GPS--the problem is with the accuracy of map data: sometimes there's a pretty substantial difference between where GPS reports are, and where the actual roadway is supposed to be. (A very common instance of this is service roads--the roads that typically parallel a limited-access highway in urban areas. Is the truck on I-78 or on the adjacent service road?
This is a ridiculously expensive way to charge tolls.
This problem has already been solved in the U.S.: you can travel from Massachusetts to Virginia using EZ-Pass [ezpass.com]. And the EZ-Pass system costs lots less to implement. For starters, the on-windshield transponders cost a few bucks; substantially less than even the lowest-cost GPS vehicle locators (which use cellular telephone control channels to report).
So why dream up such a boondoggle?
Oh...that's right. Because the Galileo system is just an out-of-this-world waste of money. So the European Space Agency needs to dream up problems for their solution to solve. And the Europeans wonder why their economies are stagnant.
The future of driving (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How easy to disable? (Score:2, Insightful)
You can't do this by taxing fuel.
So would insurance companies look at this data? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You gotta be kidding me!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it is fair and reasonable you should have to pay very high petrol taxes, not that you should give up your privacy. You consume natural resources, tons of funds are spent on building roads and maintaining them and you pollute the environment.
I fail to see how "roads" are a right, they are a privelage - you should expect to pay for them from your own pocket. Don't talk to me about "freedom".
Re:A Solution in Search of a Problem (Score:0, Insightful)
And in closing, not only are their economies going better comparatively, their welfare systems are also better (by many orders of magnitude) than the US's morally bankrupt abandonment of the poor and dispossesed. So not only are they going better, they are carrying the burden of much better public services.
They have proposed something similiar in the US. (Score:5, Insightful)
And they were wrong. Even those not concerned about obvious privacy issues objected to the costs of the GPS unit, costs of upgrading gas stations, getting billed for travel on private roads and the fact that it penalizes onwers of fuel efficient vehicles by charging a flat rate. That and refitting older vehicles. And billing out-of-state drivers. The list of problems was endless, the benefits were few to none. The backlash was noteworthy and I have not see much more about it since it was first proposed; with luck the legislative will realize just how bad of an idea it was and drop it forever.
Oh, in case some think I am an anti-tax nutcase, I support reasonable increases in gas taxes and vehicle registration fees to pay for the massive road network I enjoy so much. Tollways, however, annoy me to no end.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would one want to charge people for travelling on roads? To pay for upkeep and maintenance.
Well, why don't you charge more to those who destroy the road the most?
And what does make one destroy the road more than the next guy? WEIGHT.
Weight. The heavier you are, the more you destroy the road.
So you have to get heavier vehicles to pay more for the road.
Now, what correlates nicely with vehicle weight?
PETROL CONSUMPTION. That's right. The heavier you are, the more petrol you need just to move about.
And, guess what? Petrol is taxed. Yes! There is actually a (gasp!) tax on petrol!!!
So, the more petrol you take, the more tax you pay.
And, better yet, you pay the tax wherever you travel. No need for toll booths, no need for fancy schmanzy technology.
Plain simple good old-fashioned accounting will do it.
Want more money for the roads? Want it to be collected fairly?
Just increase the petrol tax.
Re:How easy to disable? (Score:2, Insightful)
Opt out?? (Score:2, Insightful)
or.. do you mean "opt out" as in, just NOT sign up for the service? Thankfully it's optional...
Stewey
Re:How easy to disable? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Galileo down to the meter (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A Solution in Search of a Problem (Score:0, Insightful)
That's right. We'd be better off doing some regime changes here and there at oh, I don't know, 150 billion euros or so. Or developing a 'rocket shield' which won't work anyway. Plus a couple billion in tax cuts, all in all leading to a deficit of 600 billion euros. Yeah, that should get the economy going. Oh wait...
automated speeding tickets? (Score:3, Insightful)
But if the governement has enough information to say that I did $32 worth of traveling last month then they also have the information they need to mail me speeding tickets.
Evil.
It isn't speeding tickets I am against.
On the contrary, a smart and well run police department does an enormous public safety service by running traps.
You post a cop car on a busy and fast stretch of road and you make a point.
People like me slow down and do a reality check.
Others get written tickets.
It slows traffic to a reasonable level.
But automated speed traps, what public safety mechanism do they serve?
I have never gotten one of those tickets. But I can only imagine what it is like. How long does it take for them to issue it to you?
Do you even remember the stretch of road where it occured?
Does the automated speed trap actually affect the speed of the traffic?
While I am for using police and governemnt to enforce laws I am against using the police as a pure revenue mechanism.
Anyone that allows a GPS tolled road is not very far away from automated GPS ticketing.
Re:How easy to disable? (Score:2, Insightful)
German vs Austrian Systems (Score:2, Insightful)
There is a design lesson in here.
In Germany, the toll collect system was supposed to begin September 1st. The implementing consortium (bigshots like DaimlerChrysler and Deutsche Telekom) missed that deadline, so it was pushed back to November 1st, and this new deadline is in doubt, too. The On-Board-Units that every truck has to carry are
- not enough: the consortium initially figured they'd need about 50000 units for the entire country
- defective: as many as half of the delivered units show defects. Some even self-destruct on starting the truck's engine
- expensive: they cost several hundred Euros apiece, and logistics companies who have to buy them are complaining
PR-wise it's a disaster.Last week, manager-magazin.de ran an interview [manager-magazin.de] with Peter Newole, executive at Austria's equivalent, Europpass system, which does the same things TollCollect is supposed to do, only that it's cheaper and actually works. (The interview is in German, sorry.) Basically, what Mr. Newole says is that the two systems are doing similar things in vastly different ways. In both countries, trucks have to carry boxes that can communicate with base stations to register their location. Based on these location profiles, the toll is calculated. But the design of these boxes is completely different:
The design lesson is obvious: The more of something you are going to deploy, the simpler it has to be. Put the logic into the servers and make the clients as dumb as you can.
Re:Galileo down to the meter (Score:3, Insightful)
"The current US-operated GPS system only allows this type of accuracy for military purposes. I feel it is a little irresponsible to give civilians (including criminals and terrorists) access to such accurate targeting systems."
A pair of blunt scissors is all you need to open most things. I feel it is a little irresponsible to give civilians (including criminals and terrorists) access to box cutters (as was used by the terrorists two years ago). Sheesh.
Re:Re Fairer ways to tax (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's perfectly fair, what you pay is based on your consumption of fuel which tends to be proportional to how much you drive.
Our present system tends to car users in rural areas more than car owners in urban areas because the distances they have to drive tend to be larger.
This is what i'm not fully understanding. A person in a rural area has to drive more then a person in a urban area. They use more road daily, create more wear and tear on the road daily, they pay more money to use the road cause they use it more.
More over, less users on a particular road doesn't mean less cost, far from it. If you want to be realistic it costs more money per person on a lightly traveled road to put it in then it does on a with more people each paying their fair share.
Charging people a tax based on how many miles they use the road seems to be exactly the target goal. A tax on the fuel it uses is perfectly fair because it not only takes distance traveled into account, but also the vehicels weight.
Now... if you still think it's unfair for rural users to pay more money because they are required to use a car, there are two easy solutions.
1. Lower the tax for the rural users, either at the pump, with a card based tax discount, or some sorta refund from the tax department.
2. Move to a place with public transport so you don't have to use a car at all.
You can start nickpicking about rural users feeling like they are getting the short end of the stick, just as major metropolitan areas might feel it's not nessicary for their hard earned dollars to go into rural roads they don't even use, but let's face it... we all benifit from roads. Without roads you wouldn't have such swift access to goods and services, esp if you are a rural user. It's only common sence that a group effort to fund roads benifits all people. Rural users pay more to get anywhere... that's just a fact of living in a rural area.
If you still feel it is unfair... then I know at least in england there is a major major tax break for switching to propane fuel, as well as the benifit of lower cost per gallon due to less taxes. Propane is one of the lowest cost conversions i'm aware for automobiles. Even rural cars polute, you don't don't notice it as much.
Sorry, taxing users based on how much road they use makes perfect sence to me, and fuel is a fairly accurate means of metering useage. Drive a motorcycle, you use less fuel and pay less tax.
Cynical Moi? (Score:2, Insightful)
A couple of years ago in the UK there was a fuel crisis for a few days caused by truckers and farmers blocking the distribution depts and refineries. In little more than a day panicing motorists emptied every single filling station in the UK.
Since then we have seen the London congestion charge and the new motorway north of Birmingham will be a toll road (approx 6 pounds for approx 40 miles). Petrol prices have remained lower than the 86p/litre (approx 4 pounds per gallon) that caused the protests.
I somehow doubt the tax will hit the truckers anywhere near as hard as they will hit car drivers.
Re:How easy to disable? (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the big attractions of tolls is that they allow governments to move road costs off balance sheets.
If you build a road and pay for it with fuel tax, you usually have to generate debt. That this can be paid for with fuel excise is of no consequence, its still a government debt.
If you get a company to build a toll road and give them the right to toll for it (in legislation as a rule) then you have no debt. Society, of course does pay for it, plus profit for the private company at about 4 times the cost of just building the road and increasing petrol tax.
If you have less government debt, Standard and Poor & Moody's will give you a better credit rating, and you can borrow at a cheaper rate, financing your current account deficits, etc.
I'm not saying this is good (in fact, I think it sucks as roads cost money no matter what, and more if they are toll road than if not), but it is a strong factor for many governments at state/federal levels in countries around the world.
Michael
Re:"driving", as in WHERE? (Score:3, Insightful)
Paul B.