Road charging rebels 'in minority' Jun 9 2005

Only a small minority of motorists would refuse to have tracking devices fitted in their cars to allow the introduction of road-charging, according to a survey.

Transport Secretary Alistair Darling last weekend floated controversial proposals to use hi-tech satellite systems to charge different rates for driving on different roads, ranging from 2p a mile for country lanes to 1.30 for the most congested inner-city streets.

He is expected to spell out further details of his thinking at a speech to the Social Market Foundation in London.

Mr Darling says that his proposals - which are unlikely to become reality earlier than 10-15 years from now - are not designed to drive people out of their cars, but to prevent Britain's roads reaching "gridlock".

Despite a furious response to Mr Darling's proposals from motorists' groups, the survey found just 16% of "refuseniks" insisting that nothing would make them have a tracking device in their cars in a road-charging scheme.

Others said they would be encouraged to install a "black box" if it would also help emergency services locate them after a crash (27%), give them discounts on road-user charges (24%), allow them to avoid repeated payments for road use (21%), help reduce their insurance premiums (20%), relay traffic information to their car (15%), provide proof of payment (13%) or provide directions and information about places of interest (9%).

The survey, carried out by Mori for IT consultancy Detica, suggests that Mr Darling may overcome public resistance if he ensures his scheme combines tracking technology with services attractive to motorists, said Detica's head of transport Grant Klein.

"Technology can be used to ensure charging is based on vehicle type, road type, time of day, even level of congestion - this creates the potential for a much fairer means of charging," he said.

"In addition, with such a scheme, there is greater scope for ensuring that the honest motorist no longer picks up the tab for insurance and road-tax evaders. By tracking those who fail to comply and pay their way, law-abiding motorists will see the benefit in their pockets and through improved safety.

"When presented with a list of potential benefits, 73% of vehicle owners we spoke to said they would consider having a device fitted. So the Government needs to push the benefits message home."

Cant see it affecting us taffys,1 a mile do they allow tractors on the motorway,,,,,,,,,,in a welsh voice i say,,,,,,,fill her up dai am off to halfords to buy a sat-nav system!

So thats why HFD is on the rise!!

Watch out for rampers !! Katcenka is on Pipex thread!! why ????
DB66

Err......guess indulging in a spot of ramping DB66!!

I see you dont mention the Honda deal, I see you dont mention the standard fit for the ford fiesta in september, I see you dont mention the new peugeot 307 coming out in september that will have smartnav as standard, I also see you dont mention the AGM is next week and also the egm...

there is a lot of upside, no downside is visible now

Ford Showcases Advanced Telematics


May 2, 2005 | 11:25 AM email | print | feedback


You're driving down the road when your baby suddenly turns cranky. With the press of a button, a camera beams the image of your upset infant from its rear-facing child seat in the back seat onto the dashboard in front of you.

The child camera is just one of numerous safety and telematics features showcased in this new technology.

It demonstrates some of the groundbreaking safety research currently under development at Ford Motor Company's Scientific Research Laboratory.

In addition to the child camera, the vehicles with this future technology are equipped with a suite of pioneering advances:

Radar and vision systems allow the vehicle to "see" and estimate the likelihood of potential traffic "threats" and warn the driver.

A hands-free voice system provides control of the entertainment system, heating and cooling, and next-generation telematics.

A backup camera aid provides enhanced visibility while backing up under varying lighting conditions.

The rear collision warning system alerts the driver of an impending accident and then activates the vehicle's safety belt pretensioners to optimally position the driver for minimal injury. The oncoming vehicle is alerted by a rear-mounted light strobe system with the goal of avoiding the accident.

TrafficView side-mounted cameras greatly enhance passenger-side visibility to help alert the driver to pedestrians, bicycles, or merging vehicles.

The lane departure warning system, a low-light forward-facing camera, senses changing road conditions and alerts the driver.

The NightEye vision system features a low-light color camera system to warn the driver of possible threats that cannot be seen with the naked eye. Unlike some competitors, we use color because it is an intuitive, easily understood real-world image.

Blind spot detection uses radar to warn the driver when a vehicle is in your blind spot during a lane-change maneuver.

SmartNAV, an intuitive navigational system that uses vehicle-to-vehicle communication, as well as incident report information from local municipalities, provides real-time traffic routing.

The digital instrument cluster is reconfigurable and presents information to the driver seamlessly and intuitively.

Wireless electronic gaming (Sony PlayStation 2) and DVD, along with individual displays in the seatbacks, are used to keep the family entertained on long rides.

A steering wheel mounted SmartSwitch controls the fan speed and temperature setting for climate control, as well as the volume, seek, and selection control for entertainment, keeping a driver's hands on the wheel and out of harm's way.

does anyone spot a conection to the kind of posts informer/pro1/bradtwittlookalike/loads of other names used to post?????

Where does Tracker ie the company fit in with Traffic monitoring?

Held shares in that company once until it had a mangement buy-out and failed deal with TFC. I think it is viable profitable company which has or had overlapping software technology with TFC.

should get a strong performance this week with the agm being on thursday

Not a good day today but keeping an open mind!!

it was overbought. a bit of presure needed releasing, it will be back up tomorrow, the agm is on thursday, we always get good news from TFC on agm day

Satnav savvy and en route to a fortune


FINDING yourself head to head with a tram while driving along a busy Brussels boulevard is not for the faint hearted. Winning not being an option, the best advice is to perform a 180 as quickly as your arms will allow.

After two seconds of blind panic and some wheel turning the envy of Colin McRae, I was fortunate not to become another European accident statistic.

A glance back revealed the cause of this near-death encounter - I'd taken a wrong turn into a one-way street.

Yes, I know, a no-entry sign in Belgium is identical to those gracing the streets of Edinburgh, and probably Timbuktu for that matter. However, allowances have to be made when you're driving solo in a strange city with some dog-eared Michelin map balanced upon your knees.

This frightening experience took place a few years back. I've since invested in a handy little gadget which clips to the dash and keeps me on the straight and, hopefully not so, narrow. And it appears I'm not alone in parting with some hard-earned dosh for the latest in-car toy.

Halfords' annual profit haul of 77.5 million was boosted by strong demand for satellite navigation products, which is hardly surprising when prices have tumbled from a few thousand to a few hundred pounds in less time than it takes to traverse the Capital.

Later this week, shareholders will gather for the annual meeting of Trafficmaster - a company which has cashed in on the sat-nav boom. The use of such technology to find your way from A to B recently helped the firm bank an operating profit of 2.4m compared with just 500,000 a year earlier.

Overall sales of its "Smartnav" system trebled during 2004.

Now, Trafficmaster doesn't have the market to itself and there's likely to be some flak on Thursday following a recent attack by the National Association of Pension Funds and Institutional Shareholder Services, which wants investors to vote against the company's remuneration report because of concerns over executive share options.

Nonetheless, shareholders will hear encouraging noises from chairman Colin Walsh as Trafficmaster attempts to grow its share of one of the fastest-growing tech markets.
http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/business.cfm?id=654282005

LONDON (AFX) - Traffic information and in-car navigation group ITIS Holdings
PLC reported narrowed full year losses, and said the current year has started
well.
ITIS said its pretax loss for the year to March narrowed to 1.35 mln stg
from 6.22 mln a year earlier. The net loss narrowed to 1.21 mln from 6.14 mln.
Full year turnover rose 44 pct to 10.2 mln stg.
It said it posted its first ever net profit of 0.34 mln in the second half
of the year.
ITIS said 16 vehicle manufacturers now offer its navigation products as
standard, and new contracts were secured in the second half from
DaimlerChrysler, Land Rover, Mini, Mitsubishi, Porsche, Renault, Vauxhall and
Volvo.
It said deployment results for its Cellular Floating Vehicle Data traffic
monitoring system are ahead of expectations.
Chief executive Stuart Marks said: "We remain confident of continued growth
across all of our businesses and of further contract wins for our CFVD
technology, which will make it an increasingly important contributor to the
group."
He said the current financial year has started well, and said the board "is
confident that ITIS will sustain its exciting high growth."
newsdesk@afxnews.com
jm/

COPYRIGHT

Copyright AFX News Limited 2005. All rights reserved.

I BET WE GET NEWS ON THIS TOMORROW AT THE AGM ;-), PLUS SANDWICHES AND SHAMPERS


Road tolls signal end of congestion charge

6 June 2005
London's congestion charge faces the axe to make way for a radical, national road-user charging scheme.

Transport Secretary Alistair Darling today confirmed that motorists would pay up to 1.30 "in extreme cases on very congested roads in central London" instead of the current flat rate if his scheme goes ahead.

But he stressed that for half of all UK drivers his scheme - which would involve motorists having "black box" satellite tracking devices fitted to their cars - would be "revenue-neutral".


Mr Darling said the scheme would undergo trials in a major conurbation-within five to six years. If it is successful, Britain's 30 million drivers face paying a sliding scale of charges "within 10 to 15 years", Mr Darling said on Radio 4.

This would be off-set by reducing or scrapping petrol duty and possibly the road fund licence.

At off-peak times on roads that are not congested, drivers would pay as little as two pence per mile, said Mr Darling.

The objective, said Mr Darling, was "to make sure we can provide drivers with a realistic opportunityof getting around the country - or risk being stuck in gridlock".

He added that some of the proceeds from the system would be used to boost public transport.

Mr Darling attacked claims that the system would act as a "Big Brother", recording details of all drivers' movements.

Key figures from Transport for London sit on the Department for Transport working group which is thrashing out details of the scheme.

Experts say that for a typical motorist driving in and out of central London at peak times, the charge could be as high as ?134 a week - about ?6,400 a year.


LONDON (AFX) - Trafficmaster PLC and Transport for London announced a
collaboration deal aimed at improving traffic information services to London
motorists, but did not give any financial details.
The two companies said the are developing a data exchange system that will
enable them to share data recorded by their respective journey-time
recording camera systems through inner and outer London.
"The collaboration of data will accurately measure journeys across the
capital in real-time and can be accessed by drivers through a number of
channels," the companies said in a statement.
Under the terms of the deal, TfL is set to benefit from "considerable
savings" by using Trafficmaster's established roadside sensor network and by
eliminating the manual surveys it carries out to monitor traffic flow.
newsdesk@afxnews.com
ma

another bad day, but keeping an open mind, you made some brave predictions for this week katcenka, good luck!

not looking to good today either! but a long time to go today!

katcenka - you seem to have gone quiet after some very 'bold' statements recently. Are you still bullish about this stock??

Funny how some go from lots of posting to none at all. good message to all new comers. WATCH OUT!

Anybody who ramps their own favourite and slags a competitor off on another thread should receive a stiff ignoring. TFC down since this ramper appeared, sounded a bit like Pro actually. TFC will come good I'm sure.

pth

Easy,,,bought at just under 48 this month i think,i could check but i cant be bothered,i think it went to mid 50s ,but you never heard me talk it up did you !!

Love,peace,& sat-nan to you kivver,,,,,,,and there are plenty of posts here, there just all from you or katcenka,, respect.

dd

no probs with TFC, just that blatant ramping does more harm than good. TFC seem to have a good pipeline of customers and will have a look myself soon. Hmmm perhaps the ramper did some good afterall!

pth