Slashdot Mirror
London to Introduce Traffic Congestion Charge
Vivek writes "BBC is reporting that Londoners will have to pay a 5 pound "Congestion Charge" starting Feb 17. According to this Times of India article, an Indian software firm called Mastek developed the .NET based software to implement the plan. In the absence of toll booths, it reportedly uses character recognition from 700 surveillance cameras to identify defaulting license plates." See our previous story for background.
I thought the tubes (subway) were already over crowded in London? Shouldn't they increase the capacity of public transit before they force people to use it?
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Why in the world don't they just make the roads bigger? Doesn't that seem to be the logical route, rather than rely on high technology? Sure, I'm all for high tech, but we're talking about roads and traffic. People might be displaced, but they would get fair market for their houses, if the system is the same as it is here in the US.
-= Why can't I add 'Anonymous Coward' to my list of Foes? =-
Now not only does slashdot post duplicate stories, but they have a link to the duplicated story in the summary. It's a good plan, as it pre-empts the 500 karma-whores from posting the link in the discussion.
I worked for Mastek... briefly. All Indian company. I was flying all over the place for them, but they took weeks and weeks to reimburse me for my travel expenses. Also, instead of mailing me plane tickets, I had to drive to their office to pick 'em up every week. What a headache. Very very poor employee service. Thank god I'm out of the industry now!
This is true, but the plans, adverts and cameras have been in place for about 6 months by now...
Another exclusive scoop by Slashdot?
Hmm.
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
Actually, as a highly paid engineer god, I would support a minor usage fee for freeway access during rush hour to clear out some of the riffraff. :-) A few years back our local highway department ran a survey and found aout that almost half the people on the freeway in the afternoon rush really didn't *need* to be there.
--- Ban humanity.
Or they will be when they realise that:
...
1. Lousy London Weather
2. Muddy Roads (or, maybe deliberately applied mud smears, shh)
3. Obscured number plates
n. _NO_ PROFIT!
The idea of demolishing buildings to widen roads wouldn't work:
The area the system overs is only the central area of the City, and the buildings in question would either be company headquarters, protected buildings (of historical value etc) or just plain too big to completely remove.
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
Tony Blair: "Mr. President-Vice from Texas-North"
Cheers,
W00t,
Get Your Iraq Invasion On
Since people won't be able to drive around the centre of London much less park there they will go and park immediately outside the Congestion Zone which will cause havoc. Fortunately some car parks have already taken note of this and are charging a daily rate of £4.60
Summation 2
London doesn't have the room to widen the roads. The road layout in the centre of London is in many places hundreds of years old. None of the US-Style grid system.
The cost of widening roads in central London would be astronomical - not to mention the fact that there are a lot of very old buildings that you can't just knock a bit off from.
I've been working with .NET and all I have to say it, it won't scale. With the amount of traffic it's going to have to handle, pure and simple it's not going to scale. Just because it works for a half dozen cars a minute, doesn't mean it will work for less than ideal situations or massive congestion.
I'll assume these are illegal in London, yes? If not, I plan on buying stock in any UK based company that makes these.
Looks like its time to start stealing license plates.
For those not in the know, thats 5 pounds of money. Or, for the metrically inclined, its about 2.3 kilos of money. This roughly equates to a metric ass-load.
This is exactly why you don't let your city put up cameras to patrol the streets instead of police officers. If they're controlled by the government, they'll just find a way to tax you with them, among other problems.
The city of London is getting EXACTLY what it deserves. I just hope more of it comes their way.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
expect curry flavored tickets in the mail.
There was some cartoon, ages ago, where a girl always seemed to fix car problems with a can of hair spray. That cartoon was visionary.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So sad. What used to be a mighty empire is now the land of government run spy cameras, tabloids for newspapers, unfair tolls, and Hugh Grant.
Negative, I am a meat popsicle.
...my local Bentley's Luggage & Gifts will start carrying the Samsonite go-kart?
unsigned int question = 0x2B | ~(0x2B)
What is sad is that, while everyone agrees Something Must Be Done About Traffic, it is seen as a huge political gamble for Ken Livingstone, the London Mayor, whom all the political parties hate (he was even kicked out of the Labour Party and stood as an independent candidate). He's got the nerve to at least try and sort out the problem, and whatever his politics, I admire him for that.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Like that'll stop people from linking to the previous article. I doubt half the people on /. even bother to read the whole story or click on the links before jumping to the comments.
Mod me up, proles!
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Since the Indian article makes no mention of any obfuscation-defeating technology being employed, what is to prevent people from smearing on the mud, and claiming to have hit a puddle if stopped by the bobbies?
For those of you not too familiar with London, a map of central London with the congestion charging zone can be found here on the Transport for London website.
In brief, you're being charged 5 pounds per day inside to drive inside the congestion charging zone, which covers most of central London. The charge applies from 7.00am till 6.30pm Mondays to Fridays excluding Public Holidays (of which we get alot fewer than you 'merkins), the charge doesn't apply at weekends, and there exemptions and discounts available if you actually live within the zone or are disabled.
Considering how heavy the traffic in central London actually is, anything that might actually provide a bit of relief is welcome.
Al.The Daily ACK - Eclectic posts by yet another hacker
By far the scariest aspect (curiously un-mentioned by the Mayor) is that these cameras will be hooked up to facial recognition software.
In theory, just those covering a small section of London (the financial district) - but I have no doubts this will be extended to cover the whole city in time (after all, it's touted as "automatically identifying suspects or known criminals" so what government in the world would turn down the chance).
I find this far more disturbing - paying to try and alleviate congestion is fine (London is very crowded, and a similar scheme did help alleviate the traffic problems in Singapore when congestion charges were introduced there), paying for the privilege of being treated as a potential criminal is more than a little scary...
My last company was invited to work with the contractors for this. We'd done some work with the Criminal Records Bureau. The Congestion charging scheme was falling behind schedule and they were hoping for all the input they could muster.
.NET bit was some sort of high-up choice, probably to do with Microsoft's cosying up to "New" Labour to roll out Passport based e-government services [since rolled back in again].
The
The web operation is supposed to be a front end to everything, tbh the diagrams we were shown were a right spaghetti.
I can't remember what questions I asked but they were answered with blank stares and shrugs.
I'm glad they found some contractors. I really didn't want to do it [I'd danced with the Devil back in IIS4 days and have burnt toes].
The charging wont really help congestion on it's own. London is the worst place in the UK to drive round. 1mph is not much fun on a daily basis. Yet London has the best mass transport system in the UK but then again it doesn't have much competition.
The root cause of Uk traffic problems are the insistence that the rail network should be open to competition so we have 8 rail operators competing by running trains to different destinations. How trains in the SE compete with trains in the NW is unclear to me. Instead of decent travel we have bare bones operations where cut corners cost lives.
The road freight operators and subsidised by other road users whereas the railways have to pay in full for their tracks.
A forward sighted govt. would realise that inter-city rail travel should be invested in for the benefit of the people but hey profits not people is the rally cry of the capitalists.
Rail travel should be the mode of choice over 50 miles. Instead it is cheaper to travel by car.
I can drive the family from here to the capital and back [about 150 miles] for about £25. Take the train and we're looking at £120 for the four of us.
And then they wonder why the place of chock full of cars !
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I am beink her all ze week.
Someone had a solution for this... A pair of LCD shutters for the license plate, each covering half of the digits. They turn on and off rapidly (so it wouldn't be too noticable to the eye) and exactly out of sequence. Thus, any photograph taken with a reasonably short exposure would capture only of the plate. A video camera would capture the whole plate on successive frames, but no single frame would have the entire plate number. Thus, the OCR would fail.
A spinning fan in front of the plate would also do the trick, but might take off someone's fingers.
Here's a googled automatic license plate reader.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
I agree; if they implement this, the money should go to expanding the subway or putting a new useful road somewhere. What I don't like is the way it doesn't affect the rich in the least. Granted, they will spend the most money downtown, but the poor don't live in expensive suburbs; they mingle and transverse the bustling (congested) hub.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..
These aren't the same cameras as the police ones.
How would you suggest handling London's congestion problems?
Do you think the sequel will feature Congestion Charging?
Summation 2
If commuters are the problem, why not pass a law prohibiting companies within the congestion zone from hiring employees that don't live in the congestion zone? That should take care the problem.
For every problem there is a law that can solve it!
Next?
... over there in the Isles. What with this and surveillance cameras in the cities. Could gov't mandated doublespeak be far behind? That would be doubleplus ungood...
I'm not gloating. Really. Were not that far behind you here in the States y'know. Sigh
-- Shamus
Bleah!
Please, read this entire post it may initially look like a troll but it most certainly is not.
The software is being developed by an Indian software company. I used to sell a lot of Computer Associates backup solutions, until they switched their phone support from New York to India. Whenever you call them for tech support, often times in a "system down" scenario, the language barrier to too much to overcome. Often what could quickly be resolved with proper communication takes hours or even longer, and in some cases has resulted in things becoming more broken than when you started.
As a result, I never recommend CA software anymore for mission-critial servers. Their competition does not have this problem.
Now the first time this London congestion software goes on the fritz, some toothless brit will call a sand nig on the phone and try and solve it. Neither of them speak proper english, so who know what the fuck they will talk about. They will probably end up changing the software in some odd exchange of communication, and in the end come p with some really shitty code, like slash code or worse yet Linux itself. Then the two will meet in Arfica and suck each other's schlongs, and then they will argue about whether the stench is from the englishman's breath or the indian's BO. In reality, the smells are from all the rotten fried chicken bones and watermelon rinds piling up in Africa.
Experience has shown this to happen again and again. When will we learn our lesson?
It's pretty ridiculous that they'd even allow this. Here in the states, I pay a toll to cross a bridge to get home. This is somewhat logical because maintainance of the bridge is not covered in the tax structure, so you pay if you use it.
Back home in Canada, there was a similar bridge near my home, and it was toll-free, because everyone payed for it out of their taxes.
The UK/Canadian system is more socialist - everyone pays a little to spread out the cost. The US takes a little more of a 'pay for play' approach with user fees.
So now Londoners are paying twice for the roads they drive on. I'd be pissed if I were they.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Disregarding the various arguments for and against the "congestion zone" and its implementation for the purposes of decreasing traffic... there's an interesting alternate purpose, apparently. This weekend's Observer describes the dual-use, not only to reduce congestion but also apparently to "protect the city from terrorist attack". Seems to me such a system generates way too much information to be able to "protect" in anything close to real-time.
There's a *known* failure in the system whereby it can't recogise special font plates (only in the process of being made illegal), small motorcycle number plates (even though they're included in the scheme) and it's more than likely that mud, or salt, or cunningly placed black bolts, can make the system mis-fire and log a different number plate to the one you're carrying. There's no real system for ambiguous plates to be checked by hand.
Add in a real problem in the UK with second hand cars still being registered to their previous owners (the new owner is responsible for re-registration, and many don't because it means parking and speeding fines don't reach them) and you have One Hell of a Problem.
I expect civil disobedience.
The technology may be ever so good (though I somehow doubt even that) but it'll be the human element that'll scupper it...
The BBC article focuses on the problem of traffic problems increasing on the perimiter of the toll areas. A possible solution for this would to have a "fuzzy" or probablistic charging scheme with multiple perimiters. Within one perimiter, you have say, a 10% chance of being charged, and inside another, smaller area there may be a 50% chance of being charged. The highest congested areas can give a 100% chance of being charged.
That might, of course, bother people who un-luckily got charged more than they felt was right. Still you could get the same effect from charging in graduated increments, 10% toll in an outer perimiter, 50% in the middle and 100% in the peak area, so that drivers avoiding the toll will be spread out according to who wants to avoid how much of a toll.
The requested URL
If you use the correct type of fuel (I think it's Diesel) then you become exempt from the Congestion Charge.
Summation 2
I had to say the "Microsoft Small Business Server" ad flashing at me right above the " Managing RAID on Linux" link it downright hilarious. It only shows up about 1 in every 5 times I reload. What makes it even more funny is that its advertising, on Linux heavy Slashdot, about being able to save $200.
Londers don't have to pay a £5 charge, they can apply for a 95% discount.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
My brain must be screwed in backwards today, I thought the description read "it reportedly uses character recognition from 007 surveillance cameras.."
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
As a motorcycle rider, I would like to note that this doesn't apply to two-wheeled vehicles.
As a privacy advocate, I would like everyone to note how full of BS the guys who put up these cameras were when they said the CC cameras would only be used to prevent crime.
Witold
www.witold.org
witold.org
Linux is an "unusual kind of competition because in a way it's out there and very pervasive. In a way, there's more incompatible versions of Linux than there are of all other operating systems put together. That is, as people do innovations on top of Linux, they don't all get tested together and they're not all consistent with each other," Gates told the MVPs.
Damn... So, at the current rates that would be about $7.44 to park all day long in London.
That is CRAZY cheap compared to parking all day here in Boston (Somehere around $20-$25)...
- Mobster75
When I was in London some years ago, I actually got a headache from the traffic fumes and that's never happened before or since.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
That system seems a bit clumsy. It sounds fairly expensive, too.
.NET software sounds really - pardon the expression - 1990s.
In Singapore, they have a system where every car is fitted with a card reader for a cash card. Every time you enter a zone where they want to keep congestion down (I only saw one while I was there) it automatically deducts $1 off of your cash card. Taxis and busses entering the area charge more, too. (Busses are also done on with an electronic card system. You wave your magnetic cash card in front of the reader when you get on, and when you get off. Prices are based on how long you've been on the bus.)
700 cameras and a lot of
Vehicles whose plates can't be written should be automatically spray-painted with a barcode. On the bottom of the car for first offenders, then on the side.
One of the exemptions is for "Vehicles with 9 or more seats". Can't wait to see the new breed of monster SUV's that suddenly become popular in central London . . .
He's a commie, he even writes for the morning star. Can't be doing with any socilist types in the Labor party can we.
BTW an indipendant report said that the congestion charges might actually work. (it's on the BBC news web site somewhere, but there serch is shit)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Shouldn't a car with multiple passengers be charged less than a car with just the driver?
Will the collected funds be used to improve the transportation system, or just become another tax?
People already pay premiums to drive cars into cities. This just shaves off the numbers of poorer people.
In the end, this may increase overall sprawl by creating yet another reason for business to leave an overtaxed, overregulated city and head to suburban stripmalled pastures, lessening the density of the city, but creating more suburban sprawl.
The city becomes just a playground for the richest who can afford the premium to live in those centers of culture.
My license plate is dirty?
I have a colored or tinted over over it?
I don't HAVE a plate
I borrow my friends plate
etc etc
Will they send a bill to the french, belgians, dutch, polish and all the other foreign registered cars?
Good luck!
Wouldn't it be much more effective, and much easier to tax central-london parking lots/spaces?
Admittedly it's a low-tech solution. Am I missing something here?
I know that would keep ME out (I already take the commuter train and two metros to get to work, because parking is just TOO expensive for me (in Montreal -- not London)).
S
Hmm...traffic in London didn't seem so bad in those commercials for The Getaway on PS2. I guess someone at the production studio decided that 5mph car chases just aren't that fun.
No Sig For You
No wonder people are buying duct tape this week.
£5 per car, per day. The bigwigs on expences who travel in their BMWs will drive through without blinking an eyelid. Mr Bloggs who has to drive in and is on a Teachers salary has to pay the same £5. £150 for 30 days travel is a big dent - up to £1800 a year. The people who need to use the roads (dont ask me why they need to) will be put off. The vans, £40,000 BMWs & limos will drive right through. Surly something is wrong here?
Motorola and Nextel have put together: a cell phone, GPS, internet connection, Java programability. With this it is easy to track a cell phone, how long until we are required to carry on of these along with our driver's license? What? you don't want to? You must have something to hide, you must be a terrorist!
Free cell phone tracking
NEED!? What the hell is "need" anyway? You need to get to your job? Maybe what you "need" is a job closer to home?
"Need" gets to be very, sticky, sticky issue subject to political interpretaion.
And of course the shopping areas *need* needless costomers, or their "needed" employees have no "need" to be there in the first place.
Of course what you really have on the road is a *right* of way.
On your mule I guess, because the only ones who could cogently state a viable reason for the *need* to have motor vehicles in the city are police and emergency services in the first place. So the logical thing to do would be to simply close the city to all nonofficial motor traffic.
Works for me, I'm bicycle mechanic and frame builder. I could use the business, and you could use the exercise.
KFG
Car Parks just outside the charging zone have been, and AFAIK, still are, charging about £20 a day for parking.
"Neither of them speak proper english"
And why would people in England not be speaking their English language correctly?
ummm..... Bad Idea.
.NET, Indian software should be easy)
anyone I've ever know to work with Indian outsources work has said.
'You get what you ask for'
So why is that bad.... well you get EXACTLY what you asked for,
didn't ask for security, won't get security. didn't ask for uptime, well it'll crash a bit, but do the job......
Outsourcing to india is cheep in the short term, but often requires a re-write in the long term.
Consultancy, ummm.... what's that, don't you know what you want or somthing?
Now all I have to do is hack the crap software and no charge for me! (IIS,
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
If your car has been converted to use liquid petrolium gas you dont have to pay. An LPG conversion costs around £1000 so it may or may not be worth it depending on your usage.
http://www.nofiver.com/freelondon.html
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Pffft. When was the last time you tried parking in London? 1964? :o)
I don't know where you heard about places charging £4.60 but thats rubbish.
Just because you pay a fiver doesn't mean you're guaranteed a parking space inside the zone. Places outside of the zone are hiking their prices because of the increased demand to park in that area (so capturing the "i'll drive as close as I can and then tube it" group of people).
You can't find a daily rate of less than £20 in the area at the moment. Next week it'll probably hit £25.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I predict a rush as thousands of cars try to make it in to London before 7 am.
They've already increased the number of buses, now hopefully people will actually be able to get somewhere on them. I've absolutely no idea whether the scheme will work, but something had to be done and it's not often you get a politician prepared to risk his hide on something risky.
Hmm. One of the main reasons why people were in favour of the Charge is that it was promised that the extra revenue would be directly invested in improving public transport services so people have less incentive to drive in the first place.
I wonder how much the cost of implementing the system on Windows will detract from those improvements...
they are talking about GB here not the US. Secondly, the taxes you pay for road maintenace are NOT for your usage and damage but for the continued INFRASTRUCTURE maintenance, ie the trucks that bring food to safeway for you to buy, the trucks that deliver mail to the post office for you, the gas trucks from Chevron that ensure everyone else gets where they are going. The vehicle registration, licensing, and use fee's you pay cover your access. Thirdly there IS NO RIGHT TO USE, it is a privilege, earned and subject to regulation and revocation. Fourthly the GGB is privately owned and run for a profit, unlike the rest of the state bridges, another bright idea brought to you by greedy self serving politicos. All that said I STILL AGREE with you, and I am glad that somthing like this would get killed in the US.
PS Burien is a cool place, some LAN party friends live there, and we meet a couple of times a year for Frag Fests.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Shouldn't they just charge that one old lady in front who's driving 9 mph in the middle of the street holding everyone else up? Or those mini-van driving soccer moms (maybe, soccer hooligan moms in U.K.)
A fairly concerted campaign pointing out the congestion reducing characteristics of motorcycles made sure of that.
That's why all the bike safety adverts are on the TV and cinema.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The plates on the front and back of UK cars are, and have always been, called 'Number Plates'.
Even the BBC has been known to get this wrong.
In the UK you have to pay Road Tax so that you can use the puplic highways, however you are also taxed at over 300% on petrol (gas). Of course the amount of money the government spends on roads etc does n't even come upto the amount taken in Road Tax.. As a side note the Duke of Westminster owns a large parts of Central London including the roads.
for someone to chastise another for not reading the article, and then lamenting a potential outcome that the article dismisses!
Specifically- given the already steep prices in the affected circle, the land value most likely won't increase, despite intial speculation. But don't take my word for it, read the article.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
People who argue this is wrong because it will hit the poor are living in a fantasy land. 88% of people who drive in central london earn in the top two quartiles of the population. People on teachers salaries cannot afford to keep a car in London anyway, the poor in London rely on busses and that is exactly where the money from the congestion charge will go.
HAH...we already have that here in N. Calif.
Try driving into San Francisco from either the east bay (bridge toll =$2.00) or from the North...(Golden Gate bridge toll now = $5.00 !!)
It's Nuts! And does really seem to slow anyone down yet in terms of congestion.
===
Take the Ferry boat...its much more scenic and occasionally you might even see a whale or two inside the bay during the spring..
Quadruple the cost of owning a vehical.
I mean price, tax, liscense, and fuel. Also be sure to have a cheap and easy way for people to get around without a motor vehical.
Exclude motorcycles, motor powered scooters (like segways). Widen the side walk and make the road very bicycle friendly.
ANything other then a wide spread massive change is just a atttempt to get more money instead of raising taxes.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why can't the West rely on their own people to build software anymore, instead of third-world countries? I guess paying a fair amount for skilled work is just not something they are willing to do.
I really don't get how this type of measure is going to achieve anything, if the price is uniform.. If the charge were to be indexed on the car owner's revenue, perhaps it would deter traffic, but as it is now, it's just a matter of having enough revenue to have the right to drive..
With a fixed price, they can't make the price too high because it would be too painful for
the commoners, and if they charge too low, then the measure is useless.
. . . . . . .
may u!sh 2 sm!le at dz!z bad nn.!m!tat!ion
In Washington, DC, there are a large number of red-light cameras, and now speed cameras. My wife found out that the speed camera OCR works just fine. Twice in a week. $200 per violation. The tickets were mailed several weeks after the violations.
The picture we got in the mail had the car and an enlargement of the rear plate. The counter on the picture was in the tens of thousands. Needless to say, DC is now collecting over $10 million per year in revenue this way.
My impression is that there is a combination of computer OCR pre-processing and human checking. At $200 per violation, a couple of checks by the human eye is totally affordable.
...would be to charge the wife with Wasting Police Time. You can get time for that, which should be a pretty fair deterent to abusing the system.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. - William Shakespeare
So in the US you're saying that people have most things bigger, and do more with more ? heh :)
If you get a picture of you in your car speeding with a speeding ticket attached, just send them a picture of the money
Something people keep seem to forget about the London congestion charge. If your car is an LPG (gas) vehicle with a converted engine. There is no charge to pay. This conversion doesn't cost a huge amount and offers savings in fuel which is very expensive in the UK.
I live just outside the charging zone, but I don't even own a car. If I did, I'd have it converted just for the joy of total exemption!
I assume you know what a merkin is?
about working from home?
Too many cars in london... what shall we do? I know, roll out broad-band and get 50% of the people working from home 50% of the time....
Wow an instant 25% decrease in all congestion.
London should place a not-working from home tax on the companies that can easly support working from home.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
no compleatly true!
feel free to flame away if you can rebutt what I've said.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I noticed that alternative fuel cars are exempt. Also, LPG is losted as a valid alternative fuel. You can get a conversion done and run LPG as dual fuel (switchable between fuel/LPG) then never switch to LPG. Dont know how much the conversion costs (It's about AU$1500, which would convert to 500ukp, but it's probably more like 1000ukp), but its probably no more than 1 years congestion charge.
N/T = no text
continued INFRASTRUCTURE maintenance, ie the trucks that bring food to safeway for you to buy, the trucks that deliver mail to the post office for you, the gas trucks from Chevron that ensure everyone else gets where they are going.
1. Safeway is privately owned, taxes do not pay for their trucks.
2. The post office is affiliated with the federal government, but they fund their own operations with the sale of stamps (the gov kicks in extra money when stuff goes wrong, but this is not the norm).
3. Chevron is again privately owned, you could argue that the government is wanting war with Iraq so chevron can deliver you cheaper oil, but that is about the limit of that connection.
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
When I lived in San Francisco, I lived on the westernmost edge of the city and worked on the easternmost edge, a distance of about 7.5 miles by the most direct road. I also happened to live at the end of a streetcar line (N Judah, no I didn't think you cared) that ran practically to my office. So, I could drive my car, ride the train, or ride a bicycle to work. It took about 20 minutes to drive the car, and another 10 to 15 minutes to park and then walk to my office in the morning, with the return trip taking about 30 minutes. On the train, it was 45 minutes each way unless there was some sort of problem on the subway and we got stuck for an hour underground (only happened once or twice a month). With my bicycle, I could get to my office in 30 minutes, and get home in about 40 minutes (less energy at the end of the day). Oh, and if I rode my motorcycle, it was 25 minutes each way, no worries.
Frankly, the car was the worst option and I wound up giving it away and just riding either my bicycle or my motorcycle.
I reckon that in London, as in any other major metropolitan area, the people who drive their cars in feel like they need to drive to get everything done. If they don't need the cars, they'll use other ways of getting around. But to be better than a car, transit would have to be either significantly more convenient or significantly and reliably faster.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
the poor in London rely on busses and that is exactly where the money from the congestion charge will go
Yes, and *snicker*, I have some swam^H^H^H^H undeveloped resort property in Florida that you may be interested in.
I'll believe that the money will go to public transportation when it happens, and not a moment sooner - and I won't be holding my breath, either.
From what i can see, most of the UK ppl are like, yea ok ,its lame but we understand why. And all the americans are like 'THIS IS BS, HOW CAN WE STOP IT' and start posting links to reflective license plates. its kind of amuzing.
RTFT!
So if you see people walking around London with big signs, something along the lines ofyou'll know what they're trying to do.
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Running water, flush toliets, and three meals a day seems to be a step up from what someone would think of being a concentration camp. But then again you might not have actually read the link because you are just a coward.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
anywhere in Westminster Council's territory.
Does my bum look big in this?
Your comment got me worried - what if some bastard put MY plate on his shirt and started walking around London?!
Fortunately, the Transport For London website has the answer in its FAQ:
What happens if the cameras get a number plate wrong?
All number plates identified as having been within the congestion charging zone without having paid the appropriate charge will be cross referenced with the photographed image to ensure that the cameras have not misread the number plate. If this check identifies that a number plate has been incorrectly read then it will be manually corrected or, if unreadable, the image will be deleted.
Steve.
That system seems a bit clumsy. It sounds fairly expensive, too.
Not really. Most of the cameras were already in place for traffic-flow monitoring, all it required was a few more to patch up the gaps in coverage and some new software to interpret the images. A smart card system would have required every driver - even those who only drove into London once in ten years - to buy an expensive smart card reader/transmitter. Maybe you can get away with that in Singapore, but forking out money so that you get charged for the privilege? Not in London.
OK so the London government could buy the smartcard reader/transponders but then you're spending far far more on infrastructure than you are on a few hundred cameras, plus you have to work out a way to distribute them. Also it would have been susceptible to tampering - look at the dismal failure that most satellite TV smart card systems are. You could easily have a PC sitting in your car pretending to be a smartcard but failing to deduct any money. Also how do you enforce a smart card system? What happens when a car enters the charging zone without a smart card? You can't have barriers to stop these cars, the whole point of the system is to improve traffic flow, not slow it down, same reason you can't have toll booths. Only way is to have... enforcement cameras everywhere. Real cost saving eh?
Your choice: enforcement cameras plus some relatively cheap software, all centrally controlled and essentially tamper-proof... or enforcement cameras plus several million expensive hardware smartcards and transponders, only limited central control, and prone to tampering.
Smart card/transponder systems work on public transport because there are barriers in the way to stop you if you don't have one or it's run out of money - as a matter of fact London is getting just such a system this year. But for a road system they're simply the wrong technology.
In Soviet Russia it's
Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but copyright will always protect me.
This could be good news for telecommuting. I just wish that more U.S. companies would allow telecommuting. I do not mean 100% of the time, but I could do my job from home just as well as I can do it from work. When I NEED to drive in and do something, I can do it. If there is an emergency, find I can drive -- I will probably miss the rush hours and it won't take me more than 20 minutes to get there. And if it was that important, then why didn't I get the approval to have a redundant system in place?
(ANSWER: because you are our little IT bitch! you have to work 50 hours min every week on salary)
As time goes on, something is going to have to give. More cities, more spread out, new transit systems that do not exist today, or something.
I would take a 10% - 20% pay cut to telecommute, and I mean REAL telecommuting with a Cisco 1750, VWIC, DS1, IP Phone, everything.
Pay by cheque. They need far more paperwork to process than the other payment methods (credit card, SMS, etc.), and if everybody does it, it will cause them a major inconvience. Muhahahahaha!
-- Wibble
That depends on your audience. If you were expecting a mainly American audience (like this one), then imo you would be correct to use their dialect word.
Lets see, a very complex software project written by a bunch of Indians on an M$ platform, given the general shodiness of Indian programmers and the problematic MS platform, this should be a multi-year debacle, I'll be watching the BBC for humar value as the disaster unfolds. Also how long before the public revolts against this type of suviellance for taxation. The Indian Times article said "Indians are very technically profficient" if this were true companies would not have to hire consultants like me to clean up all the messes made by Indian programmers, when will they ever learn cheap work is not good, good work is not cheap. MM
Who was the first to use concentration camps? Yes, again it was the British in Africa.
You say it like it was a bad thing. No really.
The British army in South Africa were trying to fight a traditional war against a highly mobile enemy which was using guerrilla warfare tactics. The concentration camps were intended to stop the civilian Boer population from supplying the enemy in key areas by concentrating them together in a camp. The sanitary conditions and the level of medical care at the time were dreadful and consequently disease (particularly typhoid) swept through the camps killing thousands, they weren't gassed or gunned down. A similar proportion of the British army serving in South Africa at the time was killed by the same diseases. I would argue that camp x-ray is a concentration camp - but this time it's a concentration of suspected or actual combatants removed from the general population and held under modern sanitary and health care conditions.
Don't confuse concentration camps with extermination camps.
# init 5
Connection closed.
Oh...
Is it really a good idea to have congestion fees? They are charging you money when the traffic system is not working.
You didn't get there on time? That will be $5, please!
Your computer has crashed. You have been charged $8.
SF is onlly 7.5 miles across east to west? And it takes more than 10 minutes to get there? Traffic must be awful.
To give you some idea of how bad London's traffic problems are, if you travelled at the average morning rush-hour traffic speed, a 7.5 mile journey across London would take you 37 and a half minutes.
yeehaw
reading back, I worded that poorly, you are correct, we don't pay for the trucks, but for the additional damage, and support they require, in order to maintain the delivery system as a whole. Another person already pointed out the national implications of the highway system so I won't go into that aspect. I think the US has missed the boat regarding rail line shipping, and we are paying the price for trying to go with the more flexible but MUCH more expensive system of roadways for shipping vital goods.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I mean, such a mechanism is already available in various european cities !
...
This is not new technology, not new mechanism, not new goals : get money, slow traffic !
Sound only a "fake" news to only try to create motion related to the microsoft dotNet.
Is microsoft FUD machine got so few momentum with dotNet that they have to push "low tech" projects ?
Suddetly, i ask myself if dotNet (the platform) has realy a future
Anyway if not so, it could became the biggest "flop" since ever du to the money pushed into it !
£5 per Londoner per drive into central London. Should just about cover the cost of those .NET licenses :)
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
Not only is this a stupid idea that is doomed to failure, the work was done outside of the UK. At the moment the UK IT industry is already in need of some help and the government should set an example and support the UK workforce.
Most manufacturing industries are already dying, we should be trying to save our high-tech industries too!
I could not care less about the fact that I did not improperly use the term hardly doubt! :-) Seriously though that was a bit of a brain misfire there, combinging the thoughts that I doubt that they make enough, and hardly believe that they make enough...
So note the license plate numbers of all of your enemies, and mount them in your back window. Why evade payment when you could just redirect it?
didn't say anything about tax dollars.
KFG
Read the story first, Its a legal requirement that the money is speant on PT. Ken also has a record of doing exactly that
well im an economics major and i hate taxes and everything but it makes a lot of sense to me. tax people who use the freeway the most and the people who are really willing to pay for the freeway will actually pay for it. people who don't think it'd be worth the time & financhial effort would find a more efficient way of transportation. sure taxes suck but your getting a system that gives you a more efficient freeway. a great example that shows that this system works are the freeways in singapore. through strict tolls, automobile use is regulated to people who actually care. "Singapore is the only country in the world which has successfully controlled the amount and growth rate of its vehicle fleet by imposing a heavy tax burden on car owners." Urban Transport Problems
You don't want to spend $300 on a bike. If you do you'll need that $50 a month for maintainence, and have a bike that never runs right anyway.
Spend $750 and you'll spend $50 per *year* on maintainence the first few years. Either save up for it or buy it on credit and make the payments for 6 months. The interest will be minimal on that amount.
Get a hybrid. Insist it be fitted with road tires. You'll hate every minute of pedaling mountain bike tires on the road. Avocet and Ritchey make my favorites. Get kevlar belted tires. They're a bit heavier and ride a bit less smoothly but they really do reduce punctures to a minimum and for a pure commuter it's worth it.
Unfortunately I don't know anyone who's making a real commuter bike at the moment. Trek had a nice one for a year or two, but it's gone now. *Real* commuter bikes don't sell well enough to make it worth a major manufacturers while.
A real commuter bike would have a hybrid frame and brakes, a Shimano 7 speed internally geared hub ( like the old Sturmey-Archers, but better) fenders ( these you can at least add easily) and a custom fitted rear rack ( these you can have made, but it's pricey).
You'll also want a "cargo net" type rack bungee and a bag. The ideal bag would be a "bike messenger" type that's been modified into a sort of laptop case style that can also be mounted on a rear rack. Again, I've seen these, but I don't know anyone actually making them at the moment.
Performance ( a mailorder house out of North Carolina) makes a nice attache/laptop type messenger bag, I use one and wouldn't be without it, but it doesn't rack mount. They also make some decent and moderatly priced pannier type bags as well. ( I've got hundreds of hours of use out of these bags, and expect to get thousands more).
Gloves. don't ride without gloves. I mean it. Nothing ruins a week or two more than having to live them with skinned palms. Trust me, I've determined this empirically.
Well, unless it's having to live with a concussion and cracked skull, I've determined this empirically too, but nobody seems to like the "helmet lecture" so, I've brought up the subject and you'll do what you do.
KFG
I mean the moron who modded this offtopic. Just search Google for Louis Armstong and you might get it.
What is your solution? Something has to be done about traffic in central london. What are YOU going to suggest?
If you walk past the camera holding a license plate, will the real owner of that plate get charged? Could be a popular practical joke.
The combination of Indian technological competence and (spit).NET is surely a sign of the end times.
P.S. Doubtless numerous Indians will post bragging responses to the original posting. I've never seen a more insecure group of people, though they have plenty to be insecure about
Moscow has the busiest system in the world (over 9 million trips daily), and by far the best looking stations (especially the older ones). NYC's subway is my least favorite out of the four I've used (NYC, London, Paris, Moscow), it's just so... dirty in comparison.
Talking about this congestion charge, I'd love to see it work. I'm a cycle courier in london, congestion shortens my lifespan, fumes, limited visibility, kamikaze pedestrians walking through stationary traffic traffic in which I am moving and even worse motorbikes (although motorbikes make more noise). There's a point, all two wheelers are exempted from the charge. fair enough they don't cause congestion, but what about accidents (some people think that in central london you can wander around roads as if they are not there .. I never understood this ... "the tourist effect"?)?
Whatsmore who is on the roads when the charge will apply, which is basically during working hours? It's people who (like me) have to be on the roads, it's their job, couriers, taxi drivers, hauliers and those suited types going about their business. Now I'd love to see the suited types and everyone else decide to cycle more, or walk more or think of different ways of getting about, or change your business so you can get about less. Past a point organically grown, unplanned cities like london start to grind to a halt if everyone needs to get about anyway. To get across the north or south of the city, I either have to have an incredibly detailed knowledge of the city (london taxi drivers have to study for 5 years and learn 10s of thousands of streets to get their licence, in NY I think it takes 2 days) and go through residential streets, or follow the main "A" roads in then out again, or if you're lucky maybe you can use one of the tacked on, jam packed ring roads.
Thinking about it (this is coming straight from brain to keyboard) cycling really could be the answer. The increase in capacity would be incredible, especially with the use of green space and cycle only paths to get from place to place. up to a point cyclists on the roads will use excess capacity between cars at no extra cost, but if too many people did that then we'd be in car and cycle gridlock, an absolute nightmare. The problem with getting people to use bikes is that they do not consider 10 miles to be a reasonable distance to cycle, most people really are pretty sedentary. One of the first things I noticed when I started cycling regularly with this job was the improvement in my fitness, when I stopped excercising my heart rate noticably slowed down very quickly. I thought to myself, this is how the human body *should* be working, most people can barely run to catch the bus. This whole car philosophy is silly, driving kids to school, driving to work driving to the corner shop. Where do you walk? Our cities are already overtaken by vast strips of tarmac. Use of cycles means less buses and taxis, less private vehicles leaving motors for heavy goods and long distance (should we be forced to need a motor for long distances?) still a lot, but reducing it to what it needs to be.
Well I could go on all day (are you still here!?) the whole point of this rant is that this needs to be a proper dialogue between everyone, the mayor just helping it along, making everything work and the ideas coming from the bottom up. That's what all this democracy business is about isn't it? But it seems to me that the thining behind our use of cars dosn't seem right to me.
So if I stand near the camera's line of sight holding a number plate, the number plate will be read and the owner of the number plate will receive a demand for the money? Cool. I shall be trying this on Monday, and probably going to court about it in a couple of months. -- silas
Such a system would be easy to fool, as the many ingenious solutions proposed on this page indicate. The schemes that display fake license numbers on pieces of paper remind me of Minority Report, when Tom Cruise gets new eyes and uses his old eyes later on in the movie to gain access to the room with the precogs. :)
(0, offtopic) .NET juggernaut. You think it's hairy to push a migration from winNT to *ux NOW? Try recommending moving your data off .NET "clouds" in 3 years. The "lock-in" of the past will look like a kindergarten hallmonitor compared to the .NET Alcatraz.
.NET platform. Our power grids may not be managed through IE, but if we can't EVER manage our total distribution grids for food, or even just ball bearings, do YOU think we'll see fair, flat pricing from the beast of redmond?
Don't berate me for Linux-whoring, I'm posting anon. We've GOT to coordinate better to slow the
Yeah, call me f*ckin paranoid. I'd like to be able to donate my extra $$ to charities of MY choice, instead of billg's. Oh yeah, I DO my part to keep choice available, so bite me.
The worst part is, even cautious governments are piling on the
*pukes in hat*
Hey NSA, CIA, Homeland Security.. I hope you guys have moved beyond the vanity of the '80s that had you turning away raw natural talent in favor of "conservative", "trustable" agents. If you are using win-blows-cock for ANYTHING mission critical, the world (not to mention the USA) is totally, totally fucked.
I used to worry that the intelligence community was giving the orders in the US, now I pray it does. At least the CIA realizes that the scientific method is more than just a liberal scam to pervert christian youth, whilst "president" dubya tries to amputate religious choice and graft "faith based initiatives" onto our schools. FREEDOM OF CHOICE, not Freedom of Christianity. I recently found god, and I didn't need some preacher or rabbi or shaman or towel-head to show me the Light. FREEDOM OF CHOICE.
If anyone wants to chat, or rant, or try to educate me, or hell, be friends, my email is jumpandlink@yahoo.com
United We Stand
Die, wahabi pigs
Fuck every country that danced on 9/11
Lieberman in '04
USA 4VR
peace out
::insert Neil Diamond song here::
Believe me it's wrong! I often pay over £5 per hour in central london, around the edge of "the zone" (as we will now call it) you're looking at £2-3 per hour at a guess.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
These people weren't rounded up because of who they are. They were rounded up because they were combatants, leaders of combatants, or members of group of terrorists. Its more of a military prison than a concentration camp. As far as the "Seig Heil!" goes, if the Nazi's treated the people in its concentration camps as well as the people who are in Quantanimo Bay prison, 6 million Jews wouldn't have died. Sometimes the trolls are those with an incredibly low number.
I/O, I/O, its off to disk I go, with a read and a write, and a bit and a byte, I/O, I/O, I/O, I/O
Darn, fresh out of mod points, mod parent up as informative please. Thanks.
Er, it'd be football mums, we don't say 'Mom' in blighty, you know old chap...
We want you to quit your job and stop coming to our successful busy city today.
... your getting a new cell.
;o)
Now where the F--- do you want to go today?
I know, I know, Today lets crash the economy with frivoulous lawsuits, patents, repression, depression, supression, surveilance, and more law, lets spread it to the banks and have a seerious economic problem.
In other news:
The Cops just told the, "Dude your getting a Dell" Guy (who *WAS* gonna have a successful career), "Dude . . . your getting a cell." for a recent marijuana bust he was involved in. But I can't help to wonder if it shouldn't have beeen, "Doob? Your gettin a cell." er. "Doob
Okay enough about the news.
Can you even get a train out of the station in 30 seconds? What a crock.
Paris does well with 5 to 30 minuste between trains. The metro rocks and the Paris train system goes everwhere.
If people HAVE to drive cars in midtown London, the tube sucks. There is no reason for things to be that way.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Can't fix the tube. Charging people 5 pounds just won't work. I know, we have to kill the people we don't like. That's it, yeah, bring on the next ice age.
Hey you, get away from me. What? -
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Wasn't there just a whole huge discussion about RFID tags in tires and how they could be used to RELIABLY AND CHEAPLY record every car passing by, even on a 12 lane highway where everyone is doing 100mph? And how they COULD do the same thing with OCR but RFIDs would be superior in almost every way? So why isn't London doing that?
This from the same country that banned vegetable oil fuel because there is no pollution tax paid on it, even though it pollutes far less than fossil fuels.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Why not increase your gasoline tax from $2.50/gallon to $10/gallon? That should fix the traffic "problem", which is other people doing the same thing you are because there are not better alterntives available for either of you.
Damn all those other upitty people! Serfs should be more tied to the land and not allowed to work anywhere they can't get on foot. You and others are willing to waste your time in that traffic to earn a living, the government might as well take the fruit of your labor every way it can.
Let me tell you how it's going to be. One for you 19 for me ...
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Yeah, this is the system that even *Londoners* don't understand and haven't been fully informed about the payment methods (at least according to my family down there, including one High Court barrister), and that *nobody* outside London - even visitors - has a chance of understanding or planning for in advance. If you're from Newcastle and happen to be passing in the general vicinity of London to visit relatives when you get caught by a camera, bang, you're nailed - and because you know nothing about how it works, the first you know about it is when a fine for far more than the actual charge arrives at your home a week or so later. Yes, an entirely fair system...
You must think in Russian.
I'd only add that if you ride on bike paths you're also a target for inline skaters, joggers, old ladies walking their dogs down the middle of the path, etc., none of whom will be paying attention to right of way rules and all of whom will bitch at *you* for being on the bike path, on a bike. Go figure.
Frankly, I just avoid them like the plague. They're a nasty and dangerous place to ride a bike. I always feel much safer on an eight lane during rush hour than I do on a bike path.
But then I've been "Effective" cycling since before Forester wrote the book, which, since he has, everyone taking up commuting, or any other cycling for that matter, should read.
And practice.
KFG
Cameras arent just for charging...
, 89 2001,00.html
http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903
Uhm, the car park at North Greenwich tube station is £4 for 24 hours. It's just off two of the busiest main roads into London (the A12 and the A2) and only 10 minute tube ride to the West End. Five minutes to the business district.
I park there a lot. It's usually packed full and you have to wait 20 minutes to get a space though. Then you have to pay £5 for a travelcard.. so driving into London is a lot cheaper if you actually have a space there.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Sorry, Newcastle-upon-Tyne gets my vote. The Metro is often claimed to be faster and more efficient than the Tube.
;-)
That said, Newcastle is the only British city I've been in where the traffic rivals London. So maybe something isn't quite so right up there after all
mogorific carpentry experiments
i've just sent them a legal claim, mastek is my family name...
And while I think that a use tax would work better, I think the whole idea is wrong-headed. Raising the price of operating a vehicle in London, no matter how it is done, is probably not going to decrease traffic all that much. They're trying to solve one problem (too many cars) with the solution to another (not enough money). The solution to the real problem (too many cars) is probably a combination of: innovative motorways to decrease congestion; introduction of better public transportation; and disallowing motor traffic in central areas. This shold all be accompanied by educating the next generation of young people not to think of automotive transport as the inalienable right of every human being.
I'm surprised no-one has mentioned (or maybe I missed it) that drivers of alternative fuel vehicles are exempt from the charge.
It's not only the amount of traffic on the roads in central London that's the problem, it's also the level of pollution. So hopefully this initiative will encourage the use of less polluting vehicles.
Pollution and congestion has been a problem for years in central London, and even if you can't stand Ken Livingstone, mayor of London, you have to admire him for actually doing something about it, rather than moan about it like other politicians.
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
The system will make mistakes, and some will have false plates. This has happened in Norway and this will happen in England.
In Norway we use electronic tags placed in the cars in addition to registration of car plates. In England they will only use automatic or semiautomatic carracter recognition software, and it will make mistakes. Then it is up to the person from Scotland which gets the bill to prove that he was not in London on a sertain day.
Polluting should be expensive, thus only rich people should be able to afford it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Should a politician favour local firms so they earn money or should he save money from his budget?
Damned if you do one thing, damned if you do the other.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I have lived here for 5 years and never have a headache.
"Cheshire-Puss," she began, "would you tell me, please, which way I
ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't care much where--" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
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