A potential pay per mile fee to replace road tax.

[edwin_m]

GPS would possibly cost 10-15% of the revenue collected and subject to massive potential avoidance.

How could a GPS tax be avoided? Authorities would be able to detect a vehicle with no functioning "black box" fitted, and deal with it in the same way as lack of tax/MOT/insurance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It would have to be a flat rate or location based. Time based will only encourage reckless driving behaviour such as speeding, tailgating and jumping red lights.

Sorry, by time based I meant not a fee per minute, but one based on peak and off peak, for example, as per train fares. Whereas by location based I meant eg it might be free in rural areas but £20 a mile in central London.

Obviously it can be based on any or all of those things.

Another one I've toyed with is simply to tax all urban parking heavily, including private driveways where used to store a car. Rural use would be free, and it would encourage park and ride use.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

GPS would possibly cost 10-15% of the revenue collected and subject to massive potential avoidance.

Where does that figure come from? A quick check says that fuel duty earns the Government £25Bn (£27Bn before Covid). If GPS-charging is designed to earn the same revenue, your figures imply not far off £4Bn as the cost of collecting it (Or about £100 for each car on the UK's roads). That seems extraordinarily high to maintain what would be an almost completely automated system that tracks cars' locations using technology that is largely already available and - as I understand it - similar to what is already fitted to most new cars anyway. I appreciate there would be start-up costs in getting the system going, but I'm finding that figure a bit hard to believe as an ongoing cost.

 

[Snow1964]

It is currently estimated there are 5.25% of cars are uninsured and seem to be unable to catch more than 2000-3000 each month of the 1m uninsured vehicles.

If at current rates would take 40-50 years to catch them, what hope have they got for collecting correct amount of road pricing that will be charged per journey.

The Rate of Uninsured Drivers | Xcite Car Leasing

Xcite Car Leasing contacted each of the UK’s 45 territorial police forces to determine the number of uninsured drivers caught in recent years.

xcitecarleasing.co.uk

 

[AM9]

It is currently estimated there are 5.25% of cars are uninsured and seem to be unable to catch more than 2000-3000 each month of the 1m uninsured vehicles.

See above @edwin_m 's post #31, there would be an anomaly that the greater system would be able to detect, i.e. when a record of a road's use charge is made, the absence of a live account on which to place the chardge would immediately be apparent.

If at current rates would take 40-50 years to catch them, what hope have they got for collecting correct amount of road pricing that will be charged per journey.

See my comment above, identifying uninsured vehicles would make removal and even prosecution relatively easy. Who other than the criminals who practice unlicensed driving would have an argument against it?

 

[Lost property]

It's worth remembering that, ANPR cameras already track vehicles and your phone also leaves an electronic trail, as do your bank cards.

However, far more significantly, is the source....the Mail.

Do remember there is a GE getting closer by the day (thankfully ! ) and the Mail will do it's best to print Labour "scare" stories at any opportunity and however tenuous the factual content.

 

[deltic]

How could a GPS tax be avoided? Authorities would be able to detect a vehicle with no functioning "black box" fitted, and deal with it in the same way as lack of tax/MOT/insurance.

people will find a way to disconnect the GPS tracker

 

[172007]

If autonomous vehicles take off then neither fuel duty nor pay per mile will raise much revenue at all; I can see a collapse in vehicle ownership as many drivers no longer need to have a car sitting idle for 90%+ its life, a fleet of these vehicles that can be called upon like a taxi service will replace most car journeys, especially the shorter ones that a majority of such journeys are. You might be able to tax the fares charged through autonomous vehicle use, but I can't see it anywhere near matching current revenue streams. Personally I think such a situation will be good overall were it occur: better for the environment through reduced material consumption, and all those discriminated against due to being unable to drive will finally get equal opportunity for relevant jobs, etc.

Apart from autonomous vehicles crippling the road network by double it not tripple and they will be so easily taxed per mile as the technology to make them work will be taxed by the government and the costs passed on that I think they are a non starter.

 

[deltic]

Where does that figure come from? A quick check says that fuel duty earns the Government £25Bn (£27Bn before Covid). If GPS-charging is designed to earn the same revenue, your figures imply not far off £4Bn as the cost of collecting it (Or about £100 for each car on the UK's roads). That seems extraordinarily high to maintain what would be an almost completely automated system that tracks cars' locations using technology that is largely already available and - as I understand it - similar to what is already fitted to most new cars anyway. I appreciate there would be start-up costs in getting the system going, but I'm finding that figure a bit hard to believe as an ongoing cost.

billing systems are not cheap, keeping track of c35m vehicles, chasing up non payments, dealing with errors, queries etc, data transmission charges it all adds up.

 

[edwin_m]

people will find a way to disconnect the GPS tracker

But the system would cease to transmit if tracking was not active, and roadside equipment could be used to detect any vehicles not transmitting.

 

[deltic]

But the system would cease to transmit if tracking was not active, and roadside equipment could be used to detect any vehicles not transmitting.

Which increases the cost of running the scheme

 

[renegademaster]

1. If someone really wanted to do something like that that, they could in principle already do so: Just have someone follow the leader of the opposition's car to see where he/she goes. Or alternatively possibly get/bribe an employee of the company that manages the car's existing tracking/satnav data to leak that data.

2. Think of the benefits you'd get from the authorities having access to the data. You could charge motorists to deter driving and therefore cut congestion and pollution in the cities where it's an issue while not charging as much for people who drive in the countryside where there's no alternative. You could pretty much end the offence of speeding (since you could always detect it), which would save countless lives and make the roads safer for everyone. You could also make it much easier to solve vehicle-based crime - to the extent that you could probably end fly-tipping as well as motorcycle-based thefts - so countless more people would no longer be victims of crime. Would you give all that up just because of the small possibility that some dishonest people might leak some data and use it to embarrass public figures?

Theirs easier and less privacy invavise ways to do all the things you said.


And you are correct their is already ways existing you could gain the information, but before you'd have to hire a journalist to stalk someone, now any bored DVLA bureaucrat would be able to do it with a few keystrokes.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Aug 2023 ==

Sorry, by time based I meant not a fee per minute, but one based on peak and off peak, for example, as per train fares. Whereas by location based I meant eg it might be free in rural areas but £20 a mile in central London.

Obviously it can be based on any or all of those things.

Another one I've toyed with is simply to tax all urban parking heavily, including private driveways where used to store a car. Rural use would be free, and it would encourage park and ride use.

This just sound likes a very overcomplicated way of increasing road tax , which you could also discriminate between urban and rural if you wanted to.

 

[Bletchleyite]

This just sound likes a very overcomplicated way of increasing road tax , which you could also discriminate between urban and rural if you wanted to.

No, because the tax would also apply to people driving cars from rural areas into urban ones rather than using the park and ride or railheading.

It would be really very effective to reduce the types of car use that are causing most harm while making it cheaper to use a car in places where public transport is not available at all and cycling normally not viable.

You could indeed use VED as the mechanism to tax the private home parking, though.

 

[greyman42]

Because drivers are the ones causing all the pollution, congestion, noise, ill health, etc. that results from cars. Why should everyone else pay for the harm that motorists cause?

I have never seen any evidence that motorists cause widespread health problems.

 

[172007]

I have never seen any evidence that motorists cause widespread health problems.

Lead in petrol was here and is an issue in other national. Also Nitrogen Oxhide is linked to health issues and there are plenty of studies if you Google.

 

[johncrossley]

This is nothing new and has been championed for at least 20 years by Professor Stephen Glaister who was working for that well known car hating organisation, the RAC Foundation.

RAC Foundation - Pay as you go on the roads?

A fundamental shift in the way England’s roads are managed and paid for is essential if the country is to avoid traffic gridlock in the coming decades

www.racfoundation.org

A fundamental shift in the way England’s roads are managed and paid for is essential if the country is to avoid traffic gridlock in the coming decades.

As part of the change, some form of ‘pay as you go’ scheme seems inevitable.

These are amongst the conclusions of ‘Governing and Paying for England’s Roads’, a report published today by the RAC Foundation and written by its director Professor Stephen Glaister.

 

[PGAT]

My take is that the idea is good. Taxing by mile means the people doing more damage to the road and the environment and noise pollution will pay more, and incentivises people to do less journeys or make them shorter.

But how on earth would you monitor and enforce it?

Have tolls on motorways every mile? Have cameras monitoring your car from door to door and running the maths? Have the taxman do an annual mileage inspection? It just doesn’t seem practical. I strongly support the idea however

 

[johncrossley]

Also Nitrogen Oxhide is linked to health issues and there are plenty of studies if you Google.

Indeed, the Netherlands has been forced into a nationwide 100 km/h speed limit since 2019 during the daytime hours because of the need to cut nitrogen oxide pollution. Otherwise they would not be able to start construction projects.

 

[deltic]

My take is that the idea is good. Taxing by mile means the people doing more damage to the road and the environment and noise pollution will pay more, and incentivises people to do less journeys or make them shorter.

But how on earth would you monitor and enforce it?

Have tolls on motorways every mile? Have cameras monitoring your car from door to door and running the maths? Have the taxman do an annual mileage inspection? It just doesn’t seem practical. I strongly support the idea however

GPS does it all for you, or you follow the example of some US states where your odometer uploads your mileage on a regular basis

 

[Ediswan]

GPS does it all for you, or you follow the example of some US states where your odometer uploads your mileage on a regular basis

Uploads to where ? A source reference would be good.

 

[johncrossley]

Germany has had a distance based road toll for lorries for some years now and they planned to extend it to cars but that didn't happen. It was politics, not technology, that got in the way.

 

[deltic]

Uploads to where ? A source reference would be good.

See https://tetcoalitionmbuf.org/findings-reports/ covers passenger vehicle drivers mileage reporting options, including manual, telematics, and plug-in devices with and without GPS in the Eastern USA

 

[Ediswan]

See https://tetcoalitionmbuf.org/findings-reports/ covers passenger vehicle drivers mileage reporting options, including manual, telematics, and plug-in devices with and without GPS in the Eastern USA

Thanks. What I see is a proposed mileage based alternative to their current per-gallon fuel tax system.

 

[deltic]

Thanks. What I see is a proposed mileage based alternative to their current per-gallon fuel tax system.

There are a number of trials on going in various US states - all are fairly small scale

 

[stuu]

I have never seen any evidence that motorists cause widespread health problems.

Have you ever looked? It's really quite well known

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Theirs easier and less privacy invavise ways to do all the things you said.

Care to explain what those ways are?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Aug 2023 ==

I have never seen any evidence that motorists cause widespread health problems.

Lead in petrol was here and is an issue in other national. Also Nitrogen Oxhide is linked to health issues and there are plenty of studies if you Google.

To add to that, particulates from tyres and from diesel exhausts. Other minor pollutants from petrol and diesel cars: Things like carbon monoxide, benzene and various volatile organic compounds. Then there's the issue that a car being door-to-door means you're often doing hardly any walking, so losing out on regular minor exercise - and there's a growing body of evidence linking that to a huge number of health problems, including things like dementia and contributing to diabetes - in other words, stuff that costs the NHS a *huge* amount of money to deal with, as well as going some way to explaining why it's become so hard to get a timely appointment with your GP. Then there's the issue of too many cars making roads unsafe, which contributes to children not going out to play as much so they lose out on exercise too, ending up getting into bad habits for life. And of course too many cars also deters other people from cycling. Then there's the back problems caused by sitting in a car seat being an ergonomically awful position to be seated in, and you can basically spend hours there hardly moving. And injuries caused by accidents. Need I go on? (Or should that be )

 

[Bletchleyite]

Have you ever looked? It's really quite well known

I suspect a level of facetiousness there, i.e. the car emits the pollutants, not the occupant.

 

[jon81uk]

The absolute simplest would be to read the mileage at the MOT and charge based on the change from the mileage at the previous MOT. No significant privacy issue as all they know is the reading from the odometer. As has already been said, only potential issue is that some of the driving may not have been done in the UK, whereas at present you can avoid paying fuel duty by buying fuel in France/Ireland etc.

 

[stuu]

I suspect a level of facetiousness there, i.e. the car emits the pollutants, not the occupant.

D'oh! Yes, suspect you are right

As to tracking, as has already been pointed out, the mobile phone companies manage it so the data on that scale exists. Being able to differentiate between driving on the M25 and around Powys has to be a good thing. This could be arranged whereby roads are banded into three or four tiers and then the only information stored/billed is the number of miles on each.

Of course people will find ways to cheat, but that's the same with every single other tax that has likely ever been invented

 

[ainsworth74]

I think there's a couple of things here. One is just the Mail being the Mail and disingenuously attacking Labour for something which isn't official policy (how dare a political party think about some ideas!) but more to the point the policy itself is obviously going to be required in some form at some point in the near(ish, say next ten years or so) future to make up for the gaping hole in public finances that will begin to be felt as fuel duty collects less and less revenue over time. The choice becomes either budget cuts (apparently we're expecting £24.3bn 23/24 which is quite a large amount to cut) or tax rises somewhere else within the system and it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect motorists to be taxed in a new way to make up that shortfall.

Which then brings on to how you do that. I suppose you could just whack up VED but that seems a particularly blunt and unfair way of doing it. We're expecting £8bn this year so to to raise VED to the same level as fuel duty (which would still be a cut of course, just a smaller one) would be a 200% increase in VED. Not sure I fancy paying an extra 200% per year on VED! Road pricing is therefore surely the most obvious way of solving the issue? It means that those who drive the most (causing the most wear and tear, polution, etc) pay the most, as now, whilst those who drive the least pay the least.

You could even get into situations whereby if you travel at "off-peak" times you pay a slightly lower rate (helping to reduce congestion), or if you live in the countryside you benefit from a reduced rate to account for a lack of alternative travel options. Assuming you're happy with the tracking that would require. I'd suggest that potentially you run two charging schemes. One with tracking in which the carrot is the potential to benefit from reductions on the base rate. One which is purely based on mileage (say checked at MOT time) which means no tracking but you just pay a base rate per mile with no reduction if you're only traveling at 1300 on a Thursday afternoon to do the weekly shop.