Minimum threshold agreement takes its toll

26 March 2008

Agreement on minimum thresholds for road-users’ accounts, to be either guaranteed or adversely ‘hot-listed’ for transactions across charging boundaries, is emerging as a central issue for the Department for Transport’s new Interoperability Forum.

Mark Bosly, interoperability delivery manager at the DfT, also told ITS UK that the forum’s management committee would hold its first meeting in early May. Talks on practicalities are already well under way with toll operators, including the Dartford Crossing and the M6 (Toll).

But the forum’s work, he said, would ‘not pre-judge any long-term decisions regarding national road pricing’. ‘It would be unrealistic to take a decision on whether to proceed within the next five to six years, as some practical issues need to be addressed first,’ he added.

DfT road pricing chief technical architect, Grant Klein, listed charge differentiation by journey purpose (eg, for a hospital visit), as well as by user (including the disabled), and vehicle (car v truck) among design challenges for defining local scheme acceptability within a national framework.

He also highlighted potentially-key roles for navigation systems in warning drivers of upcoming charging zones.

Meanwhile, London boroughs which sought to use Local Transport Act powers to introduce congestion charging would be subject to mayoral approval, Transport for London managing director, planning, Michèle Dix, told the 2008 Traffic Management and Local Government Conference, also in London. ‘There will need to be central management to ensure consistency and avoid confusion,’ she said.

Citing transport secretary Ruth Kelly’s postponement of UK-wide road pricing, she admitted that TfL’s own development work had progressed so far ‘on the assumption that there would be a national context’. But, she pledged, investments in research and trials would not be wasted as the Government was still encouraging local schemes.

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Minimum threshold agreement takes its toll

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