The government has asked IT suppliers to bid to run
demonstrations of
road pricing technology that could be used
to implement congestion charging schemes across the
UK.
The Department of Transport has set aside at least £10m for the
projects, which aim to inform central government thinking on road
pricing, and influence the plans of 10 local authorities that are
considering setting up schemes in their own areas.
The government favours
road pricing systems, which are far more
technologically sophisticated than
central London’s congestion charging
scheme.
These time, distance and place systems would charge drivers
according to the amount of time they were driving, the distance
they drove and the location in which they were travelling.
Officials are also interested in the possibility of charging
drivers according to the type of vehicle they use.
“We know that safeguarding privacy is important and that is why
one of the primary objectives of the demonstrations is to identify
how a time, distance and place scheme could be designed so that it
safeguards privacy.
“We will explore a number of different system design and
technology options to see how this could be best done,” the
Department of Transport said in a statement.
The demonstration projects are separate from road pricing plans
being developed by local authorities in 10 large areas - Greater
Manchester; west Midlands, incorporating Birmingham, Wolverhampton
and Coventry; east Midlands, in a joint bid by Leicester, Derby and
Nottingham; Tyne and Wear; Durham; Bristol; Reading;
Cambridgeshire; Shrewsbury and Norwich.
Local officials in these areas have been asked to submit plans
for tackling congestion to the Department of Transport by July this
year, and have been strongly encouraged to make road pricing part
of their strategies.
The government says it has not made a decision on whether to
introduce a national road pricing scheme, which would be
politically controversial. However, a clue about its intentions is
contained in the new
draft road transport bill, which says that any
road pricing schemes run by local governments in future must be
interoperable.
The government today submitted two tender notices to the
Official Journal of the European Union, asking companies to come
forward for the demonstrations, which are now expected to start in
spring 2008.
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