Motives of Congestion Charges in London and Singapore - Case Study Example

Motives of Congestion Charges in London and Singapore

Introduction

It is with no doubt that traffic snarl up has more benefit to any economy than it may be beneficial by anyway. This is true for both the first world economies and emerging economies. The demerits have been seen in terms of economic losses and environmental concerns which may also be seen as economic disadvantage in the long run. In London for example, since 1973, officials began being worried about the effects of increasing car population on the roads. The same was true for Singapore that reacted by becoming the first city in the world to enact road pricing system to curb traffic in some of the roads and which was called Area Licensing Scheme (ALS) by then (1975). This required that motorized displayed the license on the screen that was allowing them a drive into certain areas. The idea in both London and Singapore was to control congestion.

However, with time, global warming became a concern and most studies revealed that traffic contributed to the accumulation of greenhouse gases that contributed to pollution and hence global warming. The same research also revealed that if congestion could be reduced by 13-30%, then 15-20% of the greenhouse gases could be reduced too from that action (Ed, 2010). So this added to reasons why traffic needed to be controlled. With many people finding themselves able to part with the fine, the government was making a lot of money thereby prompting them to enforce it to other cities. With this revelation, it has been argued that traffic congestion charges were not purely meant to serve the purpose of decongestion but rather the economic purpose of generating revenues for the respective cities. This may not be further from the truth and as is argued in this paper, congestion charges are meant to serve economic gains rather than the original idea of controlling environmental pollution and decongesting cities.

The effects of traffic jam maybe undesirable including delays of employees from reaching their workstation on time and also a delay of supplies needed by factories and the ultimate transportation to the intended market. Moreover, drivers are reported to get exhausted waiting on the road for traffic to move which sometimes in the extreme cases contributes to road accidents which in turn leads to economic losses not only to their employers but also to insurers and the third parties who have to wait for the mess to be cleared. Additionally, staying on the road with engines revving means more fuel being consumed with no miles made. This too adds to the economic losses that cities have to grapple with which prompted cities to come up with a policy to curb it. Singapore led by implementing the ASL which by 1975, was all checked manually since there was no electronic method of doing the same. While the initial conception was different from the road pricing which was supposed to be used for generating revenues for maintenance of roads, with time, it brings almost rivaled the former.

The full implementation of ASL led to a decrease of about 73% of traffic flow to the restricted zones in Singapore being observed. However, the decrease in car population in the restricted areas did not witness the same success in the 1980s as it had in the early times of its implementation as the observed decrease in traffic of cars entering the restricted zones only stagnated at around 24%. Despite this decrease, revenues generated from the process continued to soar. After Singapore moved from ASL to an electronic method, time spent on manual checking was reduced. Vehicles were initially fitted with devices that helped to track and charge cars free of charge but this later changed as each vehicle owner was and is now expected to pay for the installation of in-vehicle Units (IU) which adds into the government revenues from the scheme. This begs the question of the real motive of the policy, with some arguing that revenues collection was also one of the motive in addition to decongestion.

Moreover, before the year 1998, when electronic method of checking and charging cars was in place, car owners had increased, meaning that waiting time also increased. For example, if previously only three thousand vehicles were electronically charged, with more cars being bought, the number may have increased. Assuming the number increased to 4,000 cars, but only same number of people (150) checking the ASL, more time will be wasted on the road waiting to be served which again contributes to a traffic jam they were avoiding in the first place ( Land Transport Authority, 2008). However, presently, the IU device is making the job easier.

In London, this congestion charge was not implemented fully until the year 2003 when the ambitious plan was put in place to decongest the city by charging a congestion fee for central London. This was more motivated by the fact that it was getting easier to own a car in UK and that the population of London was also swelling. The charge was originally put at 5 pounds daily for entering the inner ring road. According to the report by David Begg to the House of Commons explained that in London, it was increasingly becoming difficult to tell whether it was a peak or off-peak hours (Laura, Andrew, & Zoe, 2010).

The real intention of the congestion charge is questionable given the fact that, it has been in existence for a while now, yet no real evidence of whether there has been a decrease in a traffic jam in the city exists. Today more than ever, London roads are busier making it really difficult to tell between rush hour and off-peak hours. Moreover, the reason for implementing this charge was partly because of the air pollution concern arising from global warming. This bring the other topic of whether this was even the best strategy to curb air pollution. Unfortunately, even the few cars that are allowed into the restricted areas still produce these pollutants. In addition, if it is air pollution that they were concerned with, then restricting access alternative vehicles into some areas will only act to concentrate these vehicles into certain regions outside of the restricted zones which still contributes to pollution in such areas.

In the recent past, it was revealed that Volkswagen Company was installing a device into their cars that enabled their cars to pass lab test for minimum allowable emission yet while on the actual road, the car was emitting more than allowed amount of gases from its engines. Before this revelation, such cars were being allowed and could be allowed into the CBD provided they had paid the charge (Martin, 2015). This means that whoever can afford to pay the congestion fee could just be allowed into these zones regardless of how much greenhouse gases their cars were emitting. It could also mean that congestion charge alone is not enough to control air pollution or worse that controlling air pollution in one area in London only transfers the same problem to another part of the city.

This is information that is in the public and the policymakers know it yet they continue to levy this charge probably implying that government is not really interested in curbing air pollution as it is concerned with increasing its revenues. In fact, by setting this charge at a small amount means many people can afford to pay and pass, which means the intended goal may not be met even though the municipality gets money from the process.

TFL estimates that the scheme generates about 150 million pound per year excluding fines. This is enough to motivate any government branch to continue the scheme even when the original intention is not being met (Laura, Andrew, & Zoe, 2010). This is the same approach that Ken Livingstone had proposed while campaigning for the mayoral office. He had promised to reduce traffic jam by 15 percent by 2010 in his 2000 manifesto.

Additionally, in London, they allow all vehicles having more than 9 seats capacity, police vehicles, vehicles registered in London borough, two-wheeled motors, National Health Service vehicles, blue badge holder's vehicles and all vehicles not driven by ordinary fuels (vehicles driven on alternative fuels like gas, fuel cells and electric motors) (Banister, 2003). If the aim was to decongest the zone, then how is allowing all these vehicles without charging them contributing to decongestion? What if the number of vehicles running on alternative fuels were to increase rapidly, will this still congest the city? The point is that congestion charge is sometimes appearing like an economic scheme and not a decongestion scheme.

Conclusion

Having reviewed the weaknesses of the congestion charge as it is presently, it becomes obvious that the original idea was to decongest the city and reduce pollution, however, with time, the thirst for revenues outweighed the original purpose. Maybe a robust and more reasonable but blunt policy would be to set a maximum allowable capacity beyond which is no car is allowed. This way, people will be served on first come first served basis and will show that there is no economic intentions or motives of the scheme. Moreover, it is reported that public buses were encouraged to transport people instead of private cars in London and that in Singapore people buy and fit IU devices on their own which also bring the question of who benefits from such strategies, if it is the same government then the point of economic purpose even become more obvious.