Jason Barnes, Editor of ITS International
I like it when an otherwise unremarkable evening turns into something which stays in the mind awhile, and enlivened debate has that habit of planting seeds in the mind which over time grow into thinking with much wider application.
Just recently, a conversation with friends about renewable energy developed into a broader discussion of cost and true worth. One was attracted to the idea of solar power for domestic use but had been put off by the high cost of installation. That opened the floodgates. His comments drew a response to the effect that solar power can, or should, only be viewed as expensive if other factors are ignored - for example, oil being a finite resource. If one views solar power in terms of conserving the planet, the line went, its cost becomes something rather different.
Money being another finite resource, it's perhaps not an argument which holds much water when the bills come in at the end of the month. Nevertheless it highlights how things might be viewed in different contexts, and perfectly reasonably.
Road User Charging (RUC) is typically viewed as an answer to the problems of congestion or ongoing asset upkeep. It can be used with other tools to give journeys a 'true' cost.
To date, that true cost has generally been spoken of in terms of the environment, and involved tagging some form of 'Greenery' on top of fuel tax and so forth in order to restrain demand and compensate for journeys' effect on the environment. However, might it also be reasonable to add national security to the list of RUC's potential benefits?
Not by virtue of its potential to allow all vehicles to be tracked everywhere all the time but because by forcing or encouraging people to think about the need to make a journey it could be used to safeguard a country's energy-independence. I'm sure there are plenty of other possible uses of RUC. Some will be more fanciful than others but I'd guess that a few might just be worth pursuing. I'll ask the question that many others have asked before: can we afford not to do it?
Successful deployment is a compound of application and education. It's also, as I've mentioned before, a question of leadership and courage.
It's interesting to contrast the pace of RUC development in The Netherlands with that in the UK. A couple of years back, I interviewed the latter's then-Transport Secretary Stephen Ladyman. At the time, he mentioned that the Dutch were very interested in what the UK was doing and had in fact been over to look at what was going on. Come forward a few years and The Netherlands is moving towards an all-encompassing national RUC scheme by 2016. The UK, by contrast, in a shining example of Government Without Blame has shelved its plans.
So, back to context: The Netherlands' government has taken a pragmatic and long-term view of the need and gone forward with an ambitious scheme which has everything to do with good husbandry far into the future. The UK Government, which shelved lorry-based charging with much fanfare because it was going to do the unthinkable and come up with something radical, has fudged devolution of RUC to the local level and run scared of tomorrow morning's headlines.
I applaud the former and despair of the latter, which I think will turn out to have been a very costly decision indeed. Internationally, the two deserve to be compared and contrasted for years to come.
Just recently, a conversation with friends about renewable energy developed into a broader discussion of cost and true worth. One was attracted to the idea of solar power for domestic use but had been put off by the high cost of installation. That opened the floodgates. His comments drew a response to the effect that solar power can, or should, only be viewed as expensive if other factors are ignored - for example, oil being a finite resource. If one views solar power in terms of conserving the planet, the line went, its cost becomes something rather different.
Money being another finite resource, it's perhaps not an argument which holds much water when the bills come in at the end of the month. Nevertheless it highlights how things might be viewed in different contexts, and perfectly reasonably.
Road User Charging (RUC) is typically viewed as an answer to the problems of congestion or ongoing asset upkeep. It can be used with other tools to give journeys a 'true' cost.
To date, that true cost has generally been spoken of in terms of the environment, and involved tagging some form of 'Greenery' on top of fuel tax and so forth in order to restrain demand and compensate for journeys' effect on the environment. However, might it also be reasonable to add national security to the list of RUC's potential benefits?
Not by virtue of its potential to allow all vehicles to be tracked everywhere all the time but because by forcing or encouraging people to think about the need to make a journey it could be used to safeguard a country's energy-independence. I'm sure there are plenty of other possible uses of RUC. Some will be more fanciful than others but I'd guess that a few might just be worth pursuing. I'll ask the question that many others have asked before: can we afford not to do it?
Successful deployment is a compound of application and education. It's also, as I've mentioned before, a question of leadership and courage.
It's interesting to contrast the pace of RUC development in The Netherlands with that in the UK. A couple of years back, I interviewed the latter's then-Transport Secretary Stephen Ladyman. At the time, he mentioned that the Dutch were very interested in what the UK was doing and had in fact been over to look at what was going on. Come forward a few years and The Netherlands is moving towards an all-encompassing national RUC scheme by 2016. The UK, by contrast, in a shining example of Government Without Blame has shelved its plans.
So, back to context: The Netherlands' government has taken a pragmatic and long-term view of the need and gone forward with an ambitious scheme which has everything to do with good husbandry far into the future. The UK Government, which shelved lorry-based charging with much fanfare because it was going to do the unthinkable and come up with something radical, has fudged devolution of RUC to the local level and run scared of tomorrow morning's headlines.
I applaud the former and despair of the latter, which I think will turn out to have been a very costly decision indeed. Internationally, the two deserve to be compared and contrasted for years to come.
