Talk:London congestion charge/Archive 1

message: One thing i missed was some information on the public oppinion to the charge, otherwise great job! 137.226.135.138 10:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Public Oppinion 

message: It was suggested by a recent edit that Cambridge had Road User Charging in 1993 using this document as evidence .  In fact the only trial which took place was a demonstration in principle.  The public were never made to pay a road user charge in Cambridge.  --Richard Clegg 08:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I saw your made a full revert. Is it not worth mentioning at all then? I don't know either way so wanted to check. Pcb21 Pete 09:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sure -- I wanted to mention it on the talk so you didn't think I was just being rude or dismissing it.  There have been several such demonstrations in principle of road pricing.  I am not sure wether the one you mention was the first (I doubt it was, the subject was well studied by 1993 in academic circles though I cannot definively think of an earlier experiment off hand so I may be wrong).  I think the key thing is that they were all with volunteers taking part in an experiment (though I'm not aware of the exact details of that particular experiment).  If it was to be mentioned then perhaps a passing remark about "Experiments on the effectiveness or otherwise of road pricing schemes had been tried in other places." and give the reference. That might be more appropriate on road pricing though?  --Richard Clegg 09:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  A mention like that on road pricing sounds good to me. Pcb21 Pete 10:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Box 3 of the reference says vehicles were charged, and this is my recollection. It was a trial, but it was I think also a real working congestion charge. I left the Singapore 1998 date in just in case this was controversial. Stephen B Streater 10:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  [Oops -- fumbled thumbed editing there -- good job this is only the talk page.  Sorry].  In studies I have seen a pool of volunteers were given money, had devices fitted to their car and then had some of the money they were given taken back. I think this is what is being referred to here. I worked briefly on computer modelling of congestion charging in Cambridge in 1995 and at no point was it ever mentioned to me that there was or had ever been a real charge in place. This doesn't mean it didn't happen of course. The Durham charge scheme was widely reported as the first in the UK (that was a year before London I think). If charge had been implemented on the public in Cambridge then I'm amazed it wasn't more widely reported (especially since I've attended many presentations about road charging). I'm certainly not an expert and it could be that it has somehow escaped my attention but to me the linked article seems to refer to a demonstration in principle not a trial to the public. --Richard Clegg 11:16, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cambridge Road User Charging 

message: I see someone has added the category "Motoring tax in the UK". The authority claims it is a toll, not a tax (see dispute with embassies). Was this resolved? Stephen B Streater 08:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless I missed the resolution in the paper, it is still on-going, and worthy of a mention here. Pcb21 Pete 08:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tax or toll? 

message: Is it typical to link to the London portal at the top of the page?  Seems strange to me. -Joshuapaquin 03:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portal link 

message: In the "Criticisms of the charge" section of the article there are sections about the company that implements the charge (Capita). References are provided, but these make no reference to the charge. I've already deleted the paragraphs about Capita once. Surely they belong in the Capita Group article only, not here? Alex Sims 00:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say that it is perfectly valid to discuss the pedigree of a company with which TfL chooses to associate itself over the charge. -- de Facto (talk). 09:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not valid to discuss the pedigree of anything. That would be violation of NPOV. You should cite  someone who relates Capita and its bad pedigree and the London Congestion Charge. It's not our job to build arguments (thats OR). And another thing (after re-reading the NPOV policy). It would be good if the criticism section could be eliminated and folded into the article. A separate section acts to marginalise the criticism. Alex Sims 11:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, if it's someone else's "synthesis", as this is, it is OK.  Perhaps we need a section about the choice of 'provider' to put it in. -- de Facto (talk). 13:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms of the charge - off topic? 

message: I might have missed it in the article, but how does one pay for the toll?  Is it through the internet, or are their physical places where you can pay the toll?  Regards, -- Jeff3000 00:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Covered under "Unusual aspects" --Redaktor 22:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do you pay? 

message: As a former featured article it is a shame that this seems to have fallen so far behind.  I have undertaken quite a bit of work on it today, but they are loads of unreferenced statements and bits of POV in there.  I have also restructured the article to bring the various bits together to try and make it more coherent.  Does anyone have any good sources for the rest of the fact tag? Regan123 15:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK.  I have referenced the article now except for the 1970s scheme.  Does anyone have a reference for that? Regan123 03:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: By the date I am guessing it formed part of the Greater London Development Plan which according to  is available in at least one library in every borough. MRSC • Talk 10:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops, not watching this for some reason. I will get along to a library in a few weeks.  Thanks for the info.  Cheers, Regan123 17:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back to at least [[WP:GA|good article]] status 

message: I'd like to add the Mersey Tunnels, or possibly one of the articles about the specific tunnels, into the opening of the history section, to show that there's more than bridges that are tolled in the UK.  However, I think adding it to the statement probably means too many examples, so which of the bridges do people think should be dropped, or should the status quo be held?Enlightened Bystander 20:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made it a bit more general.  Hope you prefer this version, but as always I welcome comments. Regan123 (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

text: * for a more relevant London-based example you could cite the Dulwich College estate's turnpike road that leads off the South Circular.Ephebi (talk) 11:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've added a link in the introduction. Regan123 (talk) 15:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: History- Toll Roads

message: The key "Effects" section was using partial statistics extracted from the annual reports. It also seemed to confuse congestion with traffic numbers. I found the 2007 report quite interesting (am I that sad?) so I've gone through it and reworked the section for accuracy. 
Also it would inform the political view if there was a figure that identified the %age of the mayor's income that is derived from this source. Does anyone know this? Ephebi (talk) 11:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm still looking for it.  I was going to tabulate or graph the figures this weekend. Regan123 (talk) 12:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

text: * I've found the audited accounts in the TfL website, and noted the values in the Costs & expenditure section. Problem is, when you can get comparable figures from the comparison table (which would seem to have been extracted from the annual impacts monitoring report for 2007, page 122) they bear only a passing relationship to the statement of accounts (note 26)! They say these are provisional figures but even so they are way out in operational expenses & other costs. Ephebi (talk) 18:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked at them last night and couldn't make head nor tail of which is more accurate. I worry that we have differing figures though.  I will try and look at some news sites or elsewhere to see if anyone has worked their way through them. Regan123 (talk) 22:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I looked at the official figures cited for both sets of numbers. I suspect the problem is three-fold - 1) the table is based on provisional figures before the Statement of Accounts was produced. 2) IME the table's figures were probably produced by some hapless oik who had to build up his figures from scratch, and so uses a different basis, and then has to perpetuate this format to measure trends. 3) the Accounts had to withstand an auditor, so had to include a more thorough set of expenses, financing & depreciation costs. In many businesses someone would have picked this up when some smart Alec inside tried to marry the working figures to the Accounts, but not here. Then again, as I have gone through the report I have also noticed a little bit of "wishful thinking" creep into the summaries, which makes me wonder how well they really want to understand the numbers. Ephebi (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  misleading statistics 

message: From the Longer term effects section: "The original zone is showing a 4% increase in congestion following expansion of the congestion charge and the introduction of extended to discounts to residents of the new zone and buffer zone."
Not sure what that's trying to say. --Malleus Fatuarum (talk) 16:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The extended zone is far more residential than the original zone, so more people are eligible for the residents' discount, in addition, some areas just outside the extended zone have also been made eligible for the discount.  Following the expansion of the zone, traffic congestion has increased by 4% in the area that was covered by the original zone.  David Underdown (talk) 17:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Does this statement actually mean there are longer journey times? Technically congestion is being used here in the context of an average increase in "standard" journey times that were measured by TfL when compared to the time before the zone. However I've noticed that journalists have often got confused and use this same term to describe an increase in traffic volume (which may, or may not, result in delays to journey times). For that reason, my edits have ignored news reports & been based on the original reports which were precisely worded. Ephebi (talk) 17:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copy edit question