Time to cap the number of cars in Ireland?

antoinolachtnai

http://www.eire.com/2010/time-to-cap-the-number-of-cars/

Ireland has reached and passed ‘peak cars’ according to a report in the Irish Times (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0830/breaking38.html) . Is it time to say we have enough cars on the road and put a cap?

This sounds like a crazy thing to suggest, at least in the Western World. But in Singapore, there has been a cap on the number of cars for around 20 years, the Vehicle Quota System. Under this system, you have to bid for a ‘certificate of entitlement‘ (http://www.expatsingapore.com/content/view/1152) before you can buy a car. The quota is set in accordance with the amount of road space that is actually available. Then, there are regularly auctions. If a lot of people want to buy cars that month, the price is high (potentially tens of thousands of dollars). If no one is buying, then the price is low (could be as low as S$2).

This would be far more sensible than the system of vehicle taxation which we have at the moment in Ireland. It would address the very real problem of congestion. It would also provide a stimulus to the motor industry during quiet years, because car purchasing would be more attractive when demand for cars was low and so prices of Certificates of Entitlement were also low.

The end result of this is that it makes major congestion much less likely and allows traffic to be managed. Demand for road space (which is the ultimate cause of congestion and traffic delays) is under control at source.

It should go without saying that before we do this, we would need to have a far higher quality of public transport to offer, especially in the cities.

Chris_5339762

Agreed. We cant stop people buying cars until we have the public transport infrastructure to deal with it. Which we dont, by a long shot.

westtip

Plus the fact we have just built all these motorways - most of which 15 miles outside Dublin are running to below capacity they can take.

antoinolachtnai

Well, should we make a commitment in principal that there will be some cap on the number of cars?

For sure, outer stretches of motorways are not too busy. But they are never going to be busy in comparison to the roads and towns and cities. Almost all journeys begin or end in a town or city.

westtip

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Well, should we make a commitment in principal that there will be some cap on the number of cars?

.

A very definite no - Who is going to decide who has a car and who doesn't will it be done on cars per household? As more people emigrate for jobs there will be a natural cap placed on the number of cars. Plus as a lot of hosueholds become one job households compared to 2 job households as people lose jobs or even no job households the number of cars per household will come down, the greens with fuel tax will tax a few cars off the road, as many of won't able to pay the crazy price for fuel the greens have forced upon us. I wouldn't worry too much about it at the moment, the country needs another 4 million people to be viable, so if anything we need more people and more cars.

corktina

a big no from me. I can't see how this sort of thing wouldn't end up with the rich having all the cars. Other measures like tolls perhaps are faire, making the people driving in the congested areas or with the best roads pay.

Possibly a limit to the number of cars per household might have some merit, still would favour the rich though wouldnt it!

We'll shortly be going down to a one car household (except for a few classics that is)

Cookie_Monster

bad idea.

Say for example Dublin is "full" but Cork or Galway or the mid lands is not, so you stop people buying cars in Dublin as you could argue it just about has the public transport available. Then you would have a lot of people moving to Kildare or Wicklow or where ever so they can have a car and thus increase the traffic even more. Then you'd get into all sorts of difficulty saying when a city has reaced a level of public transport to cap cars and have ever vested interest and politician canvasing this that and the other way

L1011

Singapore is tiny with proper public transport. Ireland is large(ish), large un-dense areas and shag all public transport.

Even though I'd stand to benefit from being able to sell the entitlements for two of the three cars I have registered to me, no.

antoinolachtnai

Doesn't quite work like that! In SG, your Certificate of Entitlement is only valid for 10 years.

Victor

I think there is a case for cars to be taxed on a more sustainable basis, e.g. taking into account the amount of re-cycled / virgin material that goes into them and taxing fuel / usage / behaviour more also.

Potentially you get the same result, but in a more meaningful way.

L1011

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Doesn't quite work like that! In SG, your Certificate of Entitlement is only valid for 10 years.

Two of them are new enough not to even need NCTs

But still, no. Insane idea for a country of our size / demographics / transport.

Godge

Crazy idea.

Space is not an issue in Ireland.

Would every one-off rural house have an exemption?

Would there be a legal right to public transport? Would that mean large buses driving up and down country roads empty for much of the day?

Apart from the huge subsidies required, this would be much more wasteful.

If we all lived in a densely-populated, high rise, city like e.g. Singapore, it might work on a transport level but at a high cost to personal freedom.

D'Peoples Voice

we are still below average in terms of ownership per capita
http://www.acea.be/images/uploads/files/20100520_motorisation.pdf
although the above pdf were 2008 figures and as we know................

In June, Germany (-32.3%), Italy (-19.1%) and France (-1.3%) were the main markets with lower registrations, whereas the UK (+10.8%) and Spain (+25.6%) recorded a rise in numbers, leaving the overall result at -6.9%. The largest drop was recorded in Slovakia (-40.6%), while the biggest increase occurred in Ireland (+75.8%).

http://www.acea.be/index.php/news/news_detail/passenger_cars_registrations_down_69_in_june_level_over_6_months

The seventeen EU countries that levy passenger car taxes partially or totally based on the car’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and/or fuel consumption are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

http://www.acea.be/index.php/news/news_detail/an_increasing_number_of_member_states_levy_co2_based_taxation_or_incentivis

GTE

I wouldnt want to imagine the rural folk, like me, who could lose the chance to own a car.
A bit of a useless idea really.

If most of the houses in Ireland have a space for a car in their drive way let people fill them up. If they want to head into the cities and deal with the traffic let them. Its down to the government and local authorities to make the idea of leaving the car in the drive way more appealing, not forcing it on them and dealing with a partly useless system. Then personal choices can be made to the benefit of having the car.

I dont understand the need for people and authorities to get traffic out of cities. If people want to go through the busy areas its their own fault for getting stuck. If people need to its the governments fault for them being stuck since the first crowd probably dont have the roads and alternative routing (free, hassle free and pointless effort free) to go instead.

Run_to_da_hills

With idiots in power like John Gormley who is trying to rock the boat over strict work vehicle classification and useage, This will only encourage more people to purchase second vehicles for private use.

foggy_lad

news tonight on RTE1 had a piece on how there are less new cars being bought now so maybe the panic is a bit premature? although there is probably a lot more car journeys made now than there was 20years ago like driving children half a mile to school or driving to the local shop for the paper etc, on yer bikes!

Layzehfoo

This one's a non-runner.

Maybe if you had 100-odd million in the country, bit denying the majority of city-dwellers the ability to go to their parents' place in a one-off in the country? No.

patrickbrophy18

Okay. There are a number of things wrong with this thread title. The first is the mere fact that this countries transport is not adequate enough for people to make the switch. The car is always going to be a far faster mode of transport. It seems to be taking the government years to accomplish basic tasks such as the interconnector and metro north. Also, the country is way to spread out where you have farmers living up to 20 minutes from their local town.

Together with the fact that bus services to such areas aren't viable leads me to beleive that rural living is no longer sustainable where switching to public transport is concerned. People are not going to budge from their cars with the current state of public transport. In fact, the Dublin Bus Network review could see more people using cars because they are confining transport even further. Irish Rail have just ceased services to the Waterford-Rosslare Line. If you or this government want people to budge from their cars, you tell the transport operators in this simple-minded country to make massive improvements to transport services and then we'll talk.:mad:

antoinolachtnai

It wouldn't mean you wouldn't have a car or couldn't get one; it would just mean that there would be a cap on how many cars there are in total, and that would be proportionate to the amount of road space available.

It wouldn't necessarily cost more than it costs at the moment either. As it is we pay a high rate of VRT. Would it not make sense to replace it with something more flexible?

T-Square

What silly sausage came up with the idea of capping the number of cars?
No, I didn't RTFA.

Stonewolf

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It wouldn't mean you wouldn't have a car or couldn't get one; it would just mean that there would be a cap on how many cars there are in total

In other words, you couldn't get one because they were all taken.

Yes, we do need to do something about VRT, what we need to do is abolish it (and no, we haven't abolished it and replaced it with carbon tax, we just renamed it to get the EU off our backs over this illegal tax).

antoinolachtnai

They would never all be taken.

Cars are coming off the road every year and there would be an expiry date on the certificate (as they do in Singapore).

So at the monthly auction, there would always be entitlements available to purchase. You just need to put in your bid.

whyulittle

Will always remember my first night in Singapore. On the motorway in my little tin box of a taxi as this dingy old flat-back van passed us by with about 8 lads hanging on in the back. I wouldn't be rushing to copy their vehicle standards.

Plus as has been said, you do realise Singapore is just a little city state with a full big subway system?

sdanseo

What a stupid rule. This from the country that banned chewing gum.

L1011

Would you be willing to bid for entitlements for your buses, antoin?

antoinolachtnai

whyulittle wrote: »

Will always remember my first night in Singapore. On the motorway in my little tin box of a taxi as this dingy old flat-back van passed us by with about 8 lads hanging on in the back. I wouldn't be rushing to copy their vehicle standards.

Plus as has been said, you do realise Singapore is just a little city state with a full big subway system?

When were you in Singapore? There are very few cars in SG older than 10 years, far fewer than Ireland. There are no overloaded cars at the airport or anywhere else.

The issue isn't the size of the place, the issue is the amount of road space. If you have far too many cars onto the road, you are going to have congestion.

How do you avoid this? Or is congestion just not a problem worth solving?

L1011

You need to have suitable replacement services in place *first*. And we don't, nor are we even 20 years of sustained investment away from having enough.

RATM

I totally agree with the idea of bringing in licenses to entitlement of a vehicle. In fact I totally agree to bringing in all Singapore's laws. That would include the one that says your petrol tank must be 80% full before crossing the border to Malaysia. And the one on chewing gum. Or the thousand dollar fines for not flushing a toilet. Or corporal punishment a la Christian Brothers in the schools. The ban on homosexuality. Capital punishment by hanging.

Yes, bring me the bastion of Singaporese legislation for it is truly an authoritarian paradise :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_law_of_Singapore

antoinolachtnai

Well we already have a system that places strictures on owning cars and driving them.

Some of them have no real rationale. Surely this is worth looking at as a more sensible way to do it.

It is easy to make fun of the Singaporeans, but they have been far more innovative than Europe or America in managing roads and traffic.

Look at it another way. You can't go to a restaurant or a football match (even a terrace) unless there are spaces available. Is it right to put more cars on roads that are already full, thereby making congestion worse for everybody, including people who don't have cars.

corktina

the roads arent full in most of the country...really just in Dublin....a city centre Toll would sort that out... á lá London

dowlingm

I don't necessarily think we need a cap but the reality is that pretty much every car in Ireland is an import (neglecting any homebuilt type stuff) so the Irish government has no direct interest in promoting the purchase of cars any more than it does flatscreen TVs.

I would remove the discount commercial car tax, green diesel and any similar subsidy of one particular sector's use of cars, trucks and the like. The money saved could then go into reducing small business and farmers costs in other ways such as reducing the VAT on vehicle servicing and repairs - the labour from which would be a better contributor to the economy not to mention an incentive for keeping vehicles regularly checked out beyond what the NCT mandates.

icdg

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

http://www.eire.com/2010/time-to-cap-the-number-of-cars/

(http://www.expatsingapore.com/content/view/1152) before you can buy a car. The quota is set in accordance with the amount of road space that is actually available. Then, there are regularly auctions. If a lot of people want to buy cars that month, the price is high (potentially tens of thousands of dollars). If no one is buying, then the price is low (could be as low as S$2).

This would be far more sensible than the system of vehicle taxation which we have at the moment in Ireland. It would address the very real problem of congestion. It would also provide a stimulus to the motor industry during quiet years, because car purchasing would be more attractive when demand for cars was low and so prices of Certificates of Entitlement were also low.

From what you describe above your certificate is a right to buy a car, not to own one. What strikes me about this system (and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet) is that it would create a massive incentive for people to hang on to older vehicles, particularly if their certificate to buy was expired and the cost of such a certificate was high. As we know older vehicles are generally less efficent than newer vehicles.

It also strikes me that having bought a car, you could simply sell on your certificate at time of peak demand, effectively getting your money back. Am I getting that right? Do you have to hang on to your certificate for the time you own your car?

Also the people most in need of such certificates would be those buying their first car, being those least likely to be able to afford them?

Sounds like there are far too many flaws in this system TBH. As long as we keep encouraging one-off rural housing the notion of limiting car ownership is nonsense. One-off rural housing and public transport don't go together, unfortunately.

silverharp

silly idea , much better to scrap the current road tax and go to nationwide tolling. Could even privatise the motorways and other roads and get rid of the NRA and dopey county council involvement in roads

I have no faith in public transport here, it will always be second rate and a rat hole for wasting billions over the years

antoinolachtnai

icdg wrote: »

From what you describe above your certificate is a right to buy a car, not to own one. What strikes me about this system (and I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned yet) is that it would create a massive incentive for people to hang on to older vehicles, particularly if their certificate to buy was expired and the cost of such a certificate was high.

In Singapore, they have penalties as the car gets older. They encourage you to get rid of it. You basically have to scrap it or export it at that point.

As we know older vehicles are generally less efficent than newer vehicles.

This is conventional wisdom, but not necessarily true. You have to take into account the 'embodied energy' of the new car as well. It is unlikely that the efficiency of a vehicle from today is much better than a vehicle from 2000 that you can say it is definitely worth scrapping in favour of the 2010 model. It depends on how much mileage you do. But in Singapore, for sure, they are seeing it your way.

It also strikes me that having bought a car, you could simply sell on your certificate at time of peak demand, effectively getting your money back. Am I getting that right? Do you have to hang on to your certificate for the time you own your car?

As I understand it, you cannot do this. You can get some credit on the unused portion of your certificate of entitlement (i.e., if you trade in the car before it is 10 years old) if you car is exported or scrapped. Or you can sell the entitlement with the car if it stays in Singapore. So the entitlement goes with the car.

Also the people most in need of such certificates would be those buying their first car, being those least likely to be able to afford them?

No, you need a certificate any time you buy a new car (not a second hand car though, but I understand the price of a second hand car will rise or fall in line with the prevailing costs of certificates.) A certificate for a bigger car also costs more.

Sounds like there are far too many flaws in this system TBH. As long as we keep encouraging one-off rural housing the notion of limiting car ownership is nonsense. One-off rural housing and public transport don't go together, unfortunately.

If you want the luxury of living in a one-off house that is unserviced by public transport, is it unfair that you have to bear the cost of the extra infrastructure you require?

As it is, people in one-off housing have to own a car and pay all the taxes associated with that.

D'Peoples Voice

silverharp wrote: »

silly idea , much better to scrap the current road tax and go to nationwide tolling. Could even privatise the motorways and other roads and get rid of the NRA and dopey county council involvement in roads

I have no faith in public transport here, it will always be second rate and a rat hole for wasting billions over the years

No, no, no, tolling costs too much to administer,
as does the whole current motor tax policy - both in terms of renewals and garda enforcement, not to mention legal costs of courts.

Simply abolish motor tax, and throw on 30 cent to every litre of fuel,
my motor tax for the year was EUR 445,
30 cent per litre x 40 litres a fill x 2 fills a month x 12 months=EUR 288
okay but there would be some averaging across the country,
hopefully for the AVERAGE it would be revenue neutral.

I don't think anyone could argue against a 30 cent levy as opposed to paying motor tax, given how cheaply such taxes can be collected and how equitable they are, pay-as-you-pollute!

Oh and the advantage of this policy, if it costs too much to run, people will make fewer journeys, fewer cars will be on the roads at all times.

Carawaystick

EU common market would kybosh this.

Artigal 43 agus 40 den Bunreacht would rule out arbitrary rationing, while article 40.3 could be challenged by wimmen with q bun in th'oven prevented from driving to towards norn iron.

I'd imagine EU rules would protect men an non pregnant wimmen also.

If you look at the number of cars per capita compared to other states Ireland is well below their rates.

Use restrictions in areas of congestion would be the draconian way to go.

silverharp

D'Peoples Voice wrote: »

No, no, no, tolling costs too much to administer,
as does the whole current motor tax policy - both in terms of renewals and garda enforcement, not to mention legal costs of courts.

Simply abolish motor tax, and throw on 30 cent to every litre of fuel,
my motor tax for the year was EUR 445,
30 cent per litre x 40 litres a fill x 2 fills a month x 12 months=EUR 288
okay but there would be some averaging across the country,
hopefully for the AVERAGE it would be revenue neutral.

I don't think anyone could argue against a 30 cent levy as opposed to paying motor tax, given how cheaply such taxes can be collected and how equitable they are, pay-as-you-pollute!

Oh and the advantage of this policy, if it costs too much to run, people will make fewer journeys, fewer cars will be on the roads at all times.

However if the roads are private it will be GPS tolling per km travelled on a particlar type of road. rattle around West Kerry for a year will mean you pay the marginal cost of using that type of road. Driving around D 1 or D2 all year might be a couple of grand . At the moment there is no price for scarcity of road space. Your fuel tax is too blunt and doesnt cost resources used.

antoinolachtnai

I would say overall that it's not a question of being draconian. When things were going good, with a bit more traffic than we have now, literally millions of hours of time were wasted by people sitting in congested traffic. This was pure waste, it benefited no one.