Sensational-Adelaide.com

Waewick wrote:

muzzamo wrote:

bits wrote:Taxing fuel is surely the easiest way to do this. It taxes distance and weight.

But it doesn't tax based on the road that you on and the time of day you are using it, and therefore doesn't discourage people from using the busiest roads at the busiest times. Its all about putting levers in place that encourage more efficient use of resources which in turn leads to a stronger economy for all of us.

Congestion tax could follow.

But what it does is give a price point to the car.

Right now I hop in the car without a second thought as the immediate cost is 0 ( I incur petrol, rego and wear and tear independently )

Under this idea, I could look at it and say $5 to drive into the city or $3.60 to catch the bus.

That immediate feedback would be a trigger for many.

Completely agree. In fact way into the future my vision is that self driving cars will be hired by the hour, including congestion costs. Energy, depreciation, congestion, "surge pricing" and wear and tear are all factored into the hourly rate that you pay for the car. $25 to get into town by exclusive private self driving vehicle, $12 to get into town in rideshare self driving private vehicle, $3 to get into town on a bus.

Waewick wrote:it wasn't a libs idea it was an infrastructure idea.

LOL funny.

IA was a mouthpiece for Labor when they were in Government, just as it's a mouthpiece for the Coalition now.

monotonehell wrote: IA was a mouthpiece for Labor when they were in Government, just as it's a mouthpiece for the Coalition now.

There is that show on abc, Utopia, all about this

monotonehell wrote:

Waewick wrote:it wasn't a libs idea it was an infrastructure idea.

LOL funny.

IA was a mouthpiece for Labor when they were in Government, just as it's a mouthpiece for the Coalition now.

perhaps.

I did enjoy Utopia though.

The problem with "traditional" road tolls is that the toll is levied on the smooth, straight, free-flow road that is exactly where we want people to choose to drive instead of the parallel suburban streets with pedestrians and cyclists. It is establishing a cost profile counter to what the price encouragement should be. As others have said, fuel tax works (to a degree) to give the right price signals to encourage people to use fuel-efficient vehicles, routes and times where possible.

For example, putting a toll on the new Northern Connector would encourage cost-conscious drivers to think they get a free ride by continuing to use Port Wakefield Road and Salisbury Highway. The point of the new road is to get people off of these older roads, so it is them that should be tolled instead, but that just moves traffic over even further to the next through roads (Salisbury Highway/Churchill Road North/Cormack Road for example), requiring another tier of tolls, ....

I have seen comments in some other forum about road tolls based on in-car GPS, that can toll on all roads, with variable pricing based on any criteria that make sense - congestion, time, rat-running, vehicle size, number of occupants ... A big problem with proposing a system like that would be working out a viable transition to it. Issues like ensuring that every vehicle can be tracked (and the "Big Brother" implications of that), and determining the initial pricing system and how to "compensate" the people who would pay more, but allowing others to benefit from the new system, while keeping the whole thing cost-neutral for budget purposes, and managing interstate visitors, including in border areas. If we could come up with a system and transition that worked, then Council Rates, fuel excise and stamp duty could all be reduced.

SBD wrote:For example, putting a toll on the new Northern Connector would encourage cost-conscious drivers to think they get a free ride by continuing to use Port Wakefield Road and Salisbury Highway. The point of the new road is to get people off of these older roads, so it is them that should be tolled instead, but that just moves traffic over even further to the next through roads (Salisbury Highway/Churchill Road North/Cormack Road for example), requiring another tier of tolls, ....

Not necessarily. The point of a toll road can be to allow free movement of freight, with a secondary consideration being to free up road capacity on arterial roads. This is a different proposal entirely to a commuter freeway.

SBD wrote:I have seen comments in some other forum about road tolls based on in-car GPS, that can toll on all roads, with variable pricing based on any criteria that make sense - congestion, time, rat-running, vehicle size, number of occupants ... A big problem with proposing a system like that would be working out a viable transition to it. Issues like ensuring that every vehicle can be tracked (and the "Big Brother" implications of that), and determining the initial pricing system and how to "compensate" the people who would pay more, but allowing others to benefit from the new system, while keeping the whole thing cost-neutral for budget purposes, and managing interstate visitors, including in border areas. If we could come up with a system and transition that worked, then Council Rates, fuel excise and stamp duty could all be reduced.

I think this is inevitable, particularly in areas of congestion like city centres where entering an entire district could be detected by GPS trackers and reistered owner tolled accordingly.

I don't see how congestion is even considered a real problem for Adelaide.
Blunt tools like tolls etc are overkill for Adelaide for the next 30 years.

Surely with Greater Adelaide's tiny population we can use small tweaks to control the problem that doesn't even really exist.


South Road already ran substantially quicker than Melbourne's M1/M2/whatever during peak. We can point to other majors like Port Road, North East Road etc and say the exact same thing.
That will be true for a very long time.

Adelaide isn't big enough to need these big city fixes.

claybro wrote: The point of a toll road can be to allow free movement of freight, with a secondary consideration being to free up road capacity on arterial roads. This is a different proposal entirely to a commuter freeway.

Whatever point you wish to make, the price signals should reinforce the point, not conflict with it, whether the point is about road capacity, or residential community amenity, or anything else. The tolls should encourage the "right" people to choose to use the road, not act against it.

claybro wrote:

SBD wrote:I have seen comments in some other forum about road tolls based on in-car GPS, that can toll on all roads, with variable pricing based on any criteria that make sense - congestion, time, rat-running, vehicle size, number of occupants ... A big problem with proposing a system like that would be working out a viable transition to it. Issues like ensuring that every vehicle can be tracked (and the "Big Brother" implications of that), and determining the initial pricing system and how to "compensate" the people who would pay more, but allowing others to benefit from the new system, while keeping the whole thing cost-neutral for budget purposes, and managing interstate visitors, including in border areas. If we could come up with a system and transition that worked, then Council Rates, fuel excise and stamp duty could all be reduced.

I think this is inevitable, particularly in areas of congestion like city centres where entering an entire district could be detected by GPS trackers and registered owner tolled accordingly.

The difficulty with adopting a system like this is in enforcing that all cars and trucks have the necessary technology installed and working. Otherwise, the lazy people get a "free" ride by not having their monitoring system installed and active. Once it is fully working, creative tolling strategies could be developed for areas like the CBD that it is free (or much cheaper) for visits of 1-5 hours. Shorter than that, you are assumed to be just passing through, and should use the ring route instead. Longer than that, you are commuting and should be on public transport, but the sweet spot is for commercial activity in the city and can be encouraged.

How do London do their CBD congestion tax?

ChillyPhilly wrote:How do London do their CBD congestion tax?

Cameras and number plate recognition, basically the same as tolls roads enforce tolls.

Surely what London does about congestion does not scale down as far as Adelaide, these are apple and orange comparisons of traffic.