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."

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/

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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

46,PT.

PT,Good price wish i got it..

im on the case of the rampers, they really get on my t*ts, but trying to be more subtle than pt. Good luck to you both. Ive suffered with cyh so stopping out of this business for a while but will keep an eye on tfc.

still quiet?

Not in yet chaps. Don't like the look of the chart, still in a downtrend, although there are small indications that the tide may be turning. I'll wait for the 50MA to turn before I consider jumping in.

pth

how about buying your smartnav in ARGOS, bet you did not know you could buy it in argos ;-)http://www.argos.co.uk/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?storeId=10001&catalogId=3151&langId=-1&searchTerms=smartnav

Centurian electronics (CUC) sell their products in argos (one was even on the bargains page for xmas) and look whats happened to them!!!!!!

It's bloody expensive, good product though I sold these at 85p still got them on my watch list.

599 is not expensive its only 100 more than a tomtom, and it bloody better than a tomtom

kat - some may have bought on your promises last week, anything to say those people to give them hope following your brave predictions.

Interesting chart though Kivver. I'll stick my neck out and would predict a bounce tomorrow off previous support. Possible Divergance on both the RSI and Slow Stochastic also. Bit of a falling knife, so I'll think I'll wait until the trend reversal.

pth