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IBM Patents Pricing Motorists Off Highways
theodp writes "Self-professed patent reformer IBM snagged a patent Tuesday for the Variable Rate Toll System, which covers the rather anti-egalitarian scheme of pricing motorists off of the roads by raising tolls as congestion increases. 'Congestion pricing of traffic is emerging as a completely new services market for IBM,' boasted Jamie Houghton, IBM's Global Leader for Road Charging."
Now there's a way to simulate the sagging economy! Have them pay more for commuting to work!
It is egalitarian if everyone is surcharged equally based on traffic peak times.
And this seems to be as much the rage amongst liberal urban planners as evil corporatists.
As congestion increases, tolls increase, so more people, instead of traveling on toll roads designed to take the kind of abuse that volume and congestions provide, begin taking surface streets which are not designed for these kinds of volume.
So the toll makes out even, or slightly ahead at best. While the tax payers have to pick up the tab to repair the surface streets that are now getting heavier traffic because of increased pricing on toll roads.
So people with money get to work faster, and people with out will get taxed more. Sounds like a great idea.
-Rick
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You mean, they're charging people differently based on their religion? Their race? Their social class? Are they not charging people regardless of who they are?
Charging people more for things in higher demand is called "capitalism". Perhaps that is anti-egalitarian, but this particular instance is no more anti-egalitarian then, say, charging people more for higher quality health care, or charging people more for better quality food.
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That if you really need to get somewhere you take the tollway to get there faster. Tollroads always have less traffic than their free counter parts. You pay a little bit to get their faster. I hate the morning commute enough that I'll pay a little extra for a road like this. And on the other hand I always feel like a moron when I'm taking a tollroad home at 3AM and I'm the only one on the road. I'm glad to pay to different charges for the two different times
When demand outstrips supply, you have 3 choices:
- Endure lines (traffic jams). This sucks for the environment and our dependence on oil, makes the roads less useful for everyone, and costs society a bundle in lost productivity.
- Create more supply. Build more roads. We've been trying that for a long, long time. I don't think the Jersey Turnpike can get much bigger.
- Curtail demand. Many ways to do this, including building more public transit and taxing fuel.
- Raise prices. This affects the poor more than the rich - big surprise there! So does everything else, why are roads special?
Now, I understand the appeal of helping out the poor. But this isn't health insurance or food stamps or housing. The "right to drive a car to work" is not exactly a basic human right. I think that a nice balance of 2-3 is the way to go.W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
What's egalitarian about the free rider problem Why don't we let drivers pay the real cost of driving rather than letting everyone else subsidize the construction of roads (oh, and wage wars in oil-rich countries).
BTW, please save the commerce-needs-transport retort, it costs four times as much to ship something by truck compared to rail.
People don't drive into rush hour congestion because they like sitting around in their car waiting for lights to turn green. They drive into rush hour congestion because they have places to go, and because if you can avoid it, public transit is by and by large garbage. Congestion charging won't stop people from driving into work so they can save a few bucks by climbing onto a cramped bus next to the homeless people, in the same way that rising fuel prices hasn't led to the abandonment of automotive or airplane travel. There's nothing inherently wrong with just trying to grab the cash. What's immoral is trying to hide it beneath a thin veneer of social engineering. If a government wants to yank up additional revenue by gouging commuting in the same way it gouges everything else, then at least have the balls to be straightforward about it.
*sigh* When you have a limited resource, you have to discriminate. Either you'll have the people you can pay or the people who don't mind waiting in line. The great thing with price discrimination is that it introduces an incentive to produce more of the scarce resource. This is what the entire economy if not the entire civilization is based on. Yes, discrimination is anti-egalitarian, but guess what, everything cannot possibly be available to everyone, that's a physical impossibility, discrimination is natural.
\u262D = \u5350
Then you have a deal.
Of course you realize that And, I believe ALL major roads should be toll so that the people who are actually using a road can pay for it. this is already covered by fuel tax. The more you drive (likely predominately on major roads), the more fuel you use, thus the more tax you pay. Also, the heaver your vehicle, the more fuel you are likely to use, thus the more tax you pay.
But go ahead and place toll booths at every major road. Traffic would come to a dead standstill.
-nB
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How about using taxes to pay for roads because they are part of the public infrastructure?!
Using the PA turnpike as an example, almost all of the tolls go to pay for the state employees and their benefits, heated booths, etc, and very little if any goes back into the road. The toll system is in place to pay for itself and not the road. It's a sham. If they got rid of all the zombies in the toll booths and put up those buckets that you toss change into they could charge a fraction and have more money to put toward the road, but still... that's what taxes are for.
As a result the PA turnpike is the worst highway in PA to drive on, full of potholes, poorly maintained, half finished construction sitting empty and idle most of the time.
The other huge reason toll roads are a BAD IDEA is that there is no competition, no other option. There's almost never a parallel highway going the same place, and who would really want that anyway. So you have to pay the toll or not go at all, or spend hours and gas $$ going around. It's taking a critical public resource and using it for legal extortion. Imagine if you had to pay a sidewalk toll to walk to lunch every day.
This idea of congestion tolls seems to have yet another bad idea behind it... Most people aren't on the roads for fun. They're on the roads because they need to get somewhere.
If skyrocketing gas prices aren't thinning out the traffic why would congestion tolls thin it out?
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You know, I would love to take public transportation to work. I mean really love it. The hour I spend in my car driving to and from work every day would suddenly be converted from "chore time" to "me time". I could read a book. I could watch a movie on my iPod. I could even do some work on my laptop, if I was feeling generous to my employer.
But the it seems to me that the truth is that "they" (the public transportation authority) really don't want me to ride the bus. Why do I say this? Let me tell you.
The nearest bus stop to my house is 2 miles away. The nearest bus stop to my work is 1 mile away. That's 3 miles in the morning and 3 miles in the afternoon. I just happen to walk at about 3 miles per hour, so now my 60 minutes of daily commuting time has now turned into 2 hours of commuting time just to walk to the bus stops and back.
But it gets better. According to the online "plan your trip" schedule, they pick me up at the bus stop, then there is a layover (oops, transfer) as I wait for another bus to take me to work. Total rode-and-wait one-way time to work: 3 hours! Coming home at night is a bit better, at only 1.5 hours.
So my 60 minutes of daily commute is now a whopping total of 5.5 hours! As if that wasn't enough, due to the times the buses run I can only work a 6 hour day. On top of all this, I have to pay!
So, yes, I'd love to take public transoprtation. Too bad there's no such thing, practically speaking, where I live.
Out of curiosity, what's your basis for calling roads "the most legitimate thing government can pay for"?
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Carpools? I won't join a carpool. If I wanted to be around other people while commuting, I'd take the bus. I don't get nearly enough time alone, and my 20 minute drive to work is one of the times I have alone with my thoughts (such as they are). Why should I give that up?
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The Interstate Highway System was conceived of as a way to get from city to city quickly and easily. The germ of the idea came when, before WWII, Eisenhower was given a war-games task of getting a group of soldiers from one coast to the other and it took weeks.
But the vast majority of trips on interstates are trips within a metro region, from suburb to city or suburb to suburb. Their primary effect has been to make the modern car-centered suburb and exurb possible. This may or may not be a good thing, but it certainly wasn't Zombie Eisenhower's intention when the plans for the system were first drawn up.
I do actually think that roads are a perfectly legitimate thing for governments to spend money on; I just question whether they're the most legitimate thing. Why is it that, for instance, so many people think that whether someone gets the health care that determines whether they live or die (or live comfortable or live with constant, chronic illness) is something best left to the free market, but that getting from one outer-ring suburb to another in twenty minutes instead of forty is a pressing reason to spend billions of dollars on asphalt? I'd argue that most people see daily annoyances as things that must be fixed and are willing to ignore real necessities that are needed by other people, or that they don't need right now.
I could take public transit to work. I wouldn't even have to walk that far (a few hundred feet at each point). But I'd need to make two transfers, for a total of 57 minutes of my time, and pay $3.10 in fares. (I checked their trip-planner site to get that accurate.) Which isn't that bad.
But if I drive? 8 minutes and 55 cents in gas.
Seven times more costly; there's no comparison.
Public transit is a joke in this country.
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I have to admit, I find it fascinating that in the discussion of an article on a technology that applies a variable solution to a variable problem, the naysayers all waffle between two points; all or nothing.
You're absolutely right, sometimes carpooling is inefficient. Sometimes it will only work if you go it alone. But you fail to ask the question, "How often can I get away with it?" Are you and your buddies so inflexible that you can't communicate about what would be a good compromise time for leaving? Surely they have end-of-the-day tasks, too? And maybe, just maybe you can put in the extra effort to not have to stay late?
My point is that generally speaking you could, if you put an ounce of effort into it, find a workable carpool solution. Lots of people do, who recognize that resources aren't infinite - their's or the world's. And if everyone carpooled even 20% of the time that they commute, that's a big difference - a 10% decrease in cars on the road. So why is it that it's such an impossible thing? Is it really that un-doable, or does it just necessitate a change and the acceptance that to-date you haven't been doing it the optimal way?
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