Road pricing, who's against that? plus Daily Express
Near the beginning of the year I pointed out a petition to the PM to
"Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy"I, like many others, signed it and received an email back from the PM. In fact it's identical to this one as posted on the local Conservative blog by Cllr. Campion. If you don't fancy reading it it's pretty much - reports, blah, congestion, blah, road pricing, blah.
In fact this has been the main (if only) thrust of attack for almost all the media - road pricing = bad. Check that petition again though "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" it comes in two parts. Now to be honest I'm not that set against road pricing schemes as enacted by the Congestion Charge zone in London, it records you entering the area... and that's it. Once you're in or out of the zone nobody knows where you are.
Vehicle tracking on the other hand implies a whole new set of measures. While setting up cameras at the entrances to every city, town, and village all hooked up to one database centre is possible it's hardly practicable. A much better (from a government point of view) solution would be a black box in your car fitted with a GPS system and a mobile-phone chip. It records your movements and then dials home every so often. The central computer chugs away at the data and sends you out a bill.
The difference between this and the Congestion Charge system is that a) it knows where you have been at all times and b) in theory you could dial into a black-box and it'll tell someone where you are right now.
So perhaps the media should stop charging blindly at the big red flag with "Road Pricing" on it and look to the matador with "Vehicle Tracking" emblazoned on his tunic.
Just as an aside I note that the Daily Express picked up the Shuttle story on the Light-up bus shelters. Great, install bus shelters that can be used at night then cut the night bus service. Okay the money was made available now and thus should be used, if only to save the need in the future when such are required and money is not as forthcoming; still funny though.
3 comments:
What would have been really useful if instead of lighting bus shelters that are not being used because of the withdrawal of subsidies would have been to use the monies on real time customer information screens similar to those recently installed at Kidderminster Railway Station and I saw in use at the bus stops in Genoa and at the water bus stops in Venice. I think they would encourage greater bus use if potential passengers could see that a particular bus would be arriving in the next 5 to 10 minutes. Good locations in Stourport, for a start, would be at the York Street and at the High Street bus stops and expand it elsewhere as the money becomes available.
PS I can't get used to have to click with my right finger to open your comment box!!!
PPS Stourport Town Council are meet tonight at 7.00pm
There's a coincidence I was thinking the same thing this very morning. We live in an information age and yet we're being given very little information regarding public services.
Why can't I see where the buses are? Why can't I know that the bus I want to catch is arriving in 5 minutes? Oh you'll hear mutterings about vandalism etc, but that's not an excuse for not trying it out.
Comments:
I thought it might be my changing to a pop-up box for commenting. I'm normally not a fan, but I found it easier to be able to see the entry as well as the comment.
Meeting:
Has an agenda been made public? I assume it's at the Civic Centre, I had a quick look at the official Stourport Town site and couldn't see anything about it. Of course nothing on the WFDC site.
Damn I've just been on the WFA and saw your comment and checked the date. I was otherwise engaged, but it could have been cancelable with a couple of days notice. 3rd April - noted, hopefully I'll see you there.
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