A congestion-charging scheme was introduced in
London. This resulted in a 26 per cent reduction in average congestion levels in
central London. It also generated an estimated £123 million revenue in
2006-07
Excessive dependence on personal modes of transportation causes unacceptable
congestion and traffic jams in modern cities. Apart from causing inconvenience
to people, a large volume of traffic has an adverse environmental impact.
Finding adequate capital for financing an efficient public transport system
(which, in turn, can reduce the dependence on personal modes of transport) is
more often than not a challenge. There are social and political pressures on
keeping the public transportation system affordable, and that makes financing,
without subsidies, a challenge.
The City of London innovated to create a
solution that cut congestion, and at the same time, generated revenues to
finance the improvement of London’s transport infrastructure.
A
congestion-charging scheme was introduced in London. This resulted in a 26 per
cent cut in average congestion levels in central London. It also generated an
estimated £123 million in 2006-07, which was re-invested in transport
improvements across London. In the first four years, the net revenues exceeded
£300 million.
The London congestion charge is a fee for some motorists
travelling within those parts of London designated as the congestion charge zone
(CCZ). The main objectives of this charge are to reduce congestion and to raise
funds for investment in London’s transport system. It remains one of the largest
in the world. Worldwide, several cities have studied the London scheme when
considering their own possible schemes. The scheme uses CCTV and automatic
number plate recognition system.
While the idea was simple and powerful, its
implementation was not a cakewalk. The project involved the deployment of more
than 600 cameras at 174 entry/exit points across a 21 sq km area. Nearly 200,000
vehicles were monitored and charged daily. It involved touching 20 organisations
and generating 16,000 tasks. These cameras were capable of processing number
plates automatically and secure broadband lines were used to pass evidential
records from cameras to the core computer system.
The core philosophy behind
the Mayor of London’s initiative was: those who own cars and create congestion
should pay for improvement of public transport and containment of environment
pollution. It is more equitable than an across-the-board tax.
Cities such as
Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Gurgaon and Kolkata are extremely congested and
instead of charging across the board taxes or offering huge subsidies, which
again are inequitable and untargeted, “congestion fees” must be considered as an
option. Applying the innovation is fine but its replication must be well thought
out and adapted to our situation.
Even in London, a myriad group of powerful
stakeholders contributed more to the complexity of the solution than the
technological components. By its very nature, the initiative had high
visibility. The vigilant media was only one of the powerful stakeholders. The
political, social, environmental and technological challenges were significant.
In any major city in India, these challenges would be formidable in nature.
Transparency, good governance and clear communications would be as important as
building a consensus of citizens, chambers of commerce, NGOs and government
agencies.
In New York, Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal for a similar congestion
charge as part of his vaunted PlaNY 2030 ran into rough weather. Singapore and
Stockholm are examples of other cities, however, which have successfully
implemented their own versions of the solution.
The technology solution in
London was a relatively sophisticated one: The scheme makes use of CCTV cameras
to record vehicles entering and exiting the zone. Cameras can record number
plates with a high degree of accuracy through automatic number plate recognition
(ANPR) technology. There are also a number of mobile camera units, which may be
deployed anywhere in the zone. The majority of vehicles within the zone are
captured on camera. The cameras take two still pictures in colour and black and
white and use infrared technology to identify the number plates.
These
identified numbers are checked against the list of payees overnight by computer.
In those cases, when a number plate has not been recognised then they are
checked manually. Those that have paid but have not been seen in the central
zone are not refunded and those that have not paid and are seen are heavily
fined. The registered owner of such a vehicle is looked up in a database
provided by the driver vehicle licensing agency. Since it was implemented in
London some five years ago, there have been giant strides in every component of
the technological solution. A city like Bangalore, which suffers from traffic
congestion and which is the home to technology savvy companies, can take the
lead in producing a technologically superior solution at a fraction of the cost.
If it succeeds in implementing it, as it likely to, other cities in India and
outside may replicate the solution more widely.
Although primarily targeted
at reducing “jams” and “congestion”, studies have shown that there are
improvements in other areas as well. In all, 22 per cent of London’s carbon
dioxide emissions were caused by the traffic — this has come down. In India, the
congestion charge may factor in an emission-based weight for vehicles –thus
making those who “congest” and “pollute” bear a larger burden of the cost of
cleaning up. In a new year, let’s think new.
