Never mind Tolls are congestion charges inevitable

westtip

From todays Irish Times:

Congestion charges are inevitable for private cars using the expanded M50 and travelling into Dublin city centre over the next few years, according to the head of the Dublin Transport Office (DTO).

John Henry, director of the DTO, said car usage had to be curtailed along the M50 and into the city to prevent them becoming gridlocked. The only effective way to do this was through congestion charges, he said.


The DTO has responsibility for formulating traffic policy for the greater Dublin Area and is soon to be amalgamated into the new Dublin Transport Authority.

Henry said its traffic studies showed it was inevitable that the upgraded M50 would quickly return to being a car park. "There is a simple choice: car park or motorway. To have a motorway you have to control it."

He said continually expanding the capacity of the road network was not the answer because new roads inevitably became congested. The M50 upgrade started this month and will cost €1.1 billion, taking five years to complete, according to the National Roads Authority.

"People talk about the Westlink toll being the main problem, but traffic slows to a standstill on the M50 regardless of the toll and it will happen when that toll is removed. It will keep happening unless we manage the traffic using the road. The only way to do this is to use tolls."

However, Henry says any new tolling system would be much more sophisticated than the Westlink and would not contribute to traffic delays.

Rather than using a natural bottleneck such as the Westlink bridge, he said the new tolling system could use GPS technology to charge a vehicle when it joined the M50. The driver would be charged depending on how far they travelled on the M50, with the GPS system monitoring when the car left the M50.

"You have to limit usage of the M50 to what it can handle otherwise you have wasted your €1 billion investment." He said a similar system could be applied to the entry points to the city over the canals.

As part of the planning approval for the M50 upgrade the NRA is required to publish a demand management plan within three years after the work is complete. The Department of Transport said last night that any decision on congestion charges would have to await the publication of this report.

He admits there is likely to be strong public opposition to congestion charges but said a "user pays system" would be more equitable than current tolling mechanisms. "Sure, it will face resistance, but it will come in. The point is you pay relative to how much you travel, rather than a blanket charge."

A sophisticated charging regime would allow the system to be "tax neutral", he said, with increased revenues from congestion charges offset against lower VRT or fuel taxes.

Motorists would have the option of buying credit or paying a weekly or monthly congestion charge bill, in much the same way as paying for a mobile phone.

"The technology to do this is already available. We have run a pilot study on behalf of the European Space Agency to test a system for charging motorists.

"All we are waiting on is new satellites. The Galileo satellite navigation project will be ready in 2012. The Space Agency wanted to see how their satellites could be used."

He said Ireland was a perfect country in which to run a large scale pilot of GPS-based congestion charges. "Ireland would be perfect. You could convert all cars to having GPS technology in five years and require that new cars have inbuilt black boxes". Older cars could be fitted with these devices through the NCT.

Despite pleas from the business community for immediate measures to alleviate congestion in Dublin, he said congestion charges would have to wait until the public transport network could offer an alternative.

"People will still use their cars to the extent that they cause congestion, because they are comfortable and flexible. Demand management, which includes congestion charging is to try and get people to change their mode of transport." Following a DTO recommendation, local authorities now impose a strict maximum limit on the number of office parking spaces, as part of a long-term strategy to constrain commuting by car. "These land use changes are part of a process to transform the city from a low-density city to a high-density one."

© The Irish Times

bryanw

Just wondering - could anyone tell me to what is the extent of Dublin City Council's pedestrianisation plan, because I think that congestion charges and that would go hand-in-hand.

I think charging for congestion is inevitable - lets see what we have by 2015 (and how well it works more importantly) and then next on the agenda will be congestion charges...

Chris_533976

Gah.. thats not a congestion charge, the words "Congestion Charge" mean a system like London which is utterly inappropriate in Dublin as theres no alternative to cars half the time. Well done to the Times for putting an Independent-like-spin onto it.

What this guy is harping on about is whats planned already, a toll over the whole M50, broken down depending on where you join and leave. Its stupid, but better than the system at the moment.

westtip

What bugs me about this whole tolling issue on the M50 (and other motorways) is why build a road to relieve congestion and get traffic moving around the city, remember the M50 is an important part of the North South axial route down the East Coast and then moan like minnies when drivers go and use the dam thing. It is a bit like saying we built this motorway now you have the audacity to go and use it so we are going to charge you for using every inch of it. Sure it might reduce the traffic on the road (somehow I doubt it), but any diverted traffic will only clog up small suburban roads. Surely the function of a motorway is to move as much traffic as the road has capacity for as safely and quickly as possible. Personally I am an advocate of the Swiss system for motorway charging - an extra motorway tax disc issued on an annual basis which you pay for once to use the motorways ad finutum. If you come here on holidays or down from a different jurisdiciton you have to buy it and display it and if you get caught without it you have an instant hefty fine, no questions asked. You go on a motoring holiday which involves travelling through Switzerland and you are made well aware of the need for such an extra tax disc. The pay for what you use argument just doesn't wash, if this were the principal of motor taxation the flat fee general motor tax disc is flawed as well, as the 2,000 miles p.a. driver pays the same as the 100,000 miles a year driver, and anyway, a view needs to be taken of what the motorway infrastructure does for the whole society and not just a view it as something used by motorists, who should pay for it based on the miles they drive on it. The motorways will improve all our lives whether you drive on them or not, quicker delivery of goods, better and more choice of products, quicker journies for essential services, quicker connections for families to see each other and loads more social benefits etc etc.

Ap

Chris_533976 wrote:

Gah.. thats not a congestion charge, the words "Congestion Charge" mean a system like London which is utterly inappropriate in Dublin as theres no alternative to cars half the time.

Yes and No. Dublin as it currently stands is unsuited to a Congestion Charge, but I am sure that within a a decade or so we will see something similar to London being introduced over here. It's a chicken and egg situation - can't encourage people out of cars until public transport is top notch, can't spend money on public transport until revenues increase etc. But sooner or later public transport in and around Dublin will be decent enough so that anyone (non-commercial) who wants to drive into Dublin city will have to pay for the privilege.

bryanw

I would be in favour of a congestion charge for city centres but like on the M50 - where its tolled, its slightly different. The money tolled is going towards covering the cost whereas the congestion charge is to discourage people using their cars. I am in favour of tolling also - but people in this country seem to have some sort of allergic reaction to it.

I also think the pay by distance method works much better because then you don't get people complaining about things like .... "oooh - i have to pay 2 tolls on my route, but they only have one..." There should be some sort of national system set up for tolling in this country such as specific zones being set up and routes identified which are best suited. I think motorways in and around cities should be toll free - but when electronic tolling is done, I think the arguement of barriers causing tailbacks doesn't stand ... so someone will toll the road because there's no disruption caused...

westtip

What about varied tolling and congestion charges, for example say on the M50 if the charge to use the M50 was more expensive at peak times and less expensive off peak - and perhaps free after say 8 pm till 6.00 am perhaps this would work with the electronic tolling in placeand might lead to better use of hte system. Although I ams still convinced the Swiss idea is the most efficient

Victor

westtip wrote:

What bugs me about this whole tolling issue on the M50 (and other motorways) is why build a road to relieve congestion and get traffic moving around the city, remember the M50 is an important part of the North South axial route down the East Coast and then moan like minnies when drivers go and use the dam thing.

The M50 is for long distance traffic to bypass Dublin. It is not so you can compare fashions in Dundrum -v- Liffey Valley.

westtip wrote:

Although I ams still convinced the Swiss idea is the most efficient

All the Swiss system does is raise revenue, it doesn't have much effect on use of the motorway, other than for international traffic.

Navan Junction

Tim O'Brien, Irish Times, 17/08/2006

The director of the Dublin Transportation Office, John Henry, is at odds with the Government over the mooted introduction of a congestion charge in Dublin.


According to Mr Henry, charges for vehicles using Dublin city centre are inevitable and are likely to be introduced over the next few years, possibly linked to the introduction of tolls along the M50. In remarks published yesterday, Mr Henry said car usage on the M50 and in the city had to be curtailed and "the only way to do this is to use tolls".

However, Minister for Transport Martin Cullen ruled out city congestion charges at least in the medium term. Mr Cullen said that "only when substantial progress has been made on the implementation of the major programme of improvements in the Greater Dublin Area, then and only then will congestion charges be considered".

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern went even further and said congestion charges "can only be considered for Dublin when we have fully implemented the myriad of transport projects and traffic schemes currently under way."

Writing in the AA members' magazine AA Motoring, Mr Ahern said a decision would be made on charges only after major enhancements to suburban rail, Luas services and the M50.

Mr Ahern said that would not be until "the Port Tunnel is absorbing thousands of trucks and cars each day, the Dart and suburban rail is operating at greatly enhanced capacity, and the number of Quality Bus Corridors in the city and county have been at least trebled from the present nine QBCs. If, when all that is in place, the growth in car numbers continues to congest areas of the city then it will be time to face up to reality and decide if we want to take decisive action along the lines of what London did."

While the M50 enhancements are due to be completed by 2011 and a report on possible demand management measures is to be undertaken within three years of that, the timescale outlined by the Taoiseach would be in the order of a decade.

Congestion charges are also opposed by the Dublin Chamber of Commerce and the AA.

© The Irish Times

westtip

Victor wrote:

The M50 is for long distance traffic to bypass Dublin. It is not so you can compare fashions in Dundrum -v- Liffey Valley.

Junction hopping will always be an issue on motorways in urban areas, but what is better? to have the small suburban roads clogged up with mid 30s blondes in 4x4s wondering from shopping mall to shopping mall after they have dropped johnie and samantha off at private school or swimming lessons? On a more serious point, yes the M50 is primarily a by-pass to take traffic out of Dublin, but you have to recognise the Dublin economy has boomed on the back of the M50, with new industry springing up all the way along the route - Citywest complex for example. This is one of the problems public transport planners face. If everybody actually worked in the City Centre as opposed to being increasingly scattered across the urban area, like a spiders web in new business parks here there and everywhere - but increasingly as near a motorway junction as possible; then public transport planning would be a lot easier. It would be about shifting a lot of people at peak times into and out of one point - the city centre. With the de-centralisation of commercial activity out of the city centre (and its not just Dublin which faces this issue), there is a spacial fragmentation of where people are working on a daily basis. Businesses want to be in new buildings which are easily maintained for complex IT infrastructures, new motorways for supply chain efficiency and a lot of the new builds on the edges of cities offer very good commercial rent deals (as there is so much office space in competition with each other). How people get to work is not the problem of the employers, they put a business in an office on a motorway junction and leave it to peoples imagination (try hard - its simple they have to drive).

The provision of the motorway facilities has enabled people, rightly or wrongly to make the decision that living 30/40 miles from their place of work is doable, as long as they can afford the increasingly more expensive private car to run.

Two people working in a household will mean two cars, and one person working 30 miles in one direction the other 30 in a different direction, although perhaps an extreme example, is probably not unknown. Also, people change jobs more often these days, but they don't necessarily move closer to the new job when they move, because they make an assesment the new job is doable without the upheaval of moving home, an understandable situation. The whole situation just keeps multiplying and I don't think there is a great deal we can do about it, the fact is we have become a very car dependent culture.

Victor wrote:

All the Swiss system does is raise revenue, it doesn't have much effect on use of the motorway, other than for international traffic

I am not sure what you mean about this one victor, of course it raises revenue - in the same way as tolls do, it is just a different way of raising revenue and allows for no toll barriers on roads. The revenue raised could be used for Motorway maintenance and expansion in the same way as toll money is supposed to. I don't want to do a back of the envelope exercise but I wonder if this kind of system where in place, what cost level would the extra motroway tax disc have to be at to achieve the same revenues as tolls- and bear in mind one would expect all visiting cars to the state to buy into the idea - just as visitors to Switzerland do.

shoegirl

I would prefer congestion charging to tolling, simply because tolling usually only covers a particular route, whereas tolling covers an area. The problem with tolling is that people just use the existing non-tolled routes to evade the toll and so nullify the benefit of the bypasses or ringroads that are tolled in the first place.

The problem in Dublin is that a lot of motorists go through the city in order to get from south to northside non-city suburbs rather than stop off in the city. Anybody I know in their right mind who works in the city uses public transport unless driving is part of their job. This is in contrast to, for example, Cork, where there a) is a limited amount of free parking about 10-15 minutes walk outside the city, b) lots of people working in city areas who cannot use public transport and c) the availability of limited cheap car parking in the city at 5-7 euros a day (there are 3 car parks with about 400-500 spaces). Trouble is, if you live in Clontarf, but work in Rialto, or live in Ballymun and work in Ranelagh there is no longer (there once was) a bus to take you accross so the alternative to a car is to take 2 buses, both of whom have different terminuses, so most people will drive.

Most of the crosscity routes (like the 20 and 13) have long since been scrapped and orbital routes like UrBus are relatively expensive to DB prices. It takes a combination of both coercion (lke clamping) and improving services in order to get people to change habits.

One thing I do notice is that most new jobs now are appearing in the outer suburbs - Sandyford, Citywest, Blanchardstown, Swords - in many cases not known for good access to transport. If tax breaks were offered to locate in city centre or congestion taxes levied on those who relocate outside the city it would discourage edge city developments.

westtip

shoegirl wrote:

One thing I do notice is that most new jobs now are appearing in the outer suburbs - Sandyford, Citywest, Blanchardstown, Swords - in many cases not known for good access to transport. If tax breaks were offered to locate in city centre or congestion taxes levied on those who relocate outside the city it would discourage edge city developments.

Exactly - and the point I made earlier about the de-centralisation of commercial jobs makes it very difficult for transport planners.

There is a need to look at the whole socio-economic way in which we live in a post industrial world and try to come up with some kind of solution (what I don't know), but look at how things have changed in the past century:

When we (ie western Europe) adopted an industrialised model of living, Factories where built and people lived in the shadow of them. The Mills in Lancashire, The mines in the UK and German coalfields, The shipyards in Belfast, Glasgow and Newcastle, The Brewery in Dublin. The workers walked to work - ergo there were no cars.

Move on - industrialisation changes, white collar jobs in head offices in city centres become major employers - commuting to work from the suburbs started happening - primarily by rail, but increasingly by car in the post war period, a lot of those jobs in the old head office style office blocks have moved out of town or the head quarters of the new industries simply never went into the city centres

Now we have a post industrial model in which businesses seek the most cost efficient location and operationally efficient location for their businesses, which sometimes means re-locating to India but that is another issue, We now have the rise of the new office campuses. No workers live near them, they have no rail infrastucture (primarily built in the C19 to get people into city centres), the only way to get to them is by car. The workers are not concentrated living in terraced houses under the shadow of the office campus, as they were near the mill or mine, they are spread around in all directions living up to 20 30 miles away. Car culture is born. It has happened in every post industrial society, in a way we have created a monster which is unstoppable, what can we do about it, I am really not sure.