Congestion Charge - Home Thoughts From Abroad

[Phil Blinkhorn]

How do they apportion fuel costs then? Or don't they just include that in their on-costs as they would a CC? And as bank statements have to be reconciled any way, an extra line to check is hardly likely to bring any company to its knees.

This isn't the place for a lesson on accountancy and pricing. Suffice it to say that every claim by a driver is another transaction that has to be checked, entered, repaid and eventually reconciled.

As for charging, different companies will do it different ways the key point that you are missing -or refuse to see - is that the CC will add to costs all round.

And of course if you don't buy processed food....

.......you will be on a very limited diet. Even the most organic producers use road transport - as I'm sure you know.

OK, tell me how I benefit from a road that is so congested that a 24 minute bus trip takes 45 minutes. I'm all ears.

Nobody benefits... but the congestion charge has worked so well in London that Boris is scrapping the west London extension!

Have you ever smelled and I really mean smelled unleaded petrol, burning brake lining, hot rubber? Not for a moment or two when you open your car window but when you've inhaled the smell for a long period

No. In over 1.5 million miles of driving, running sales forces and being responsible for their car fleets, being a consultant for a courier company and being able to do major car maintenance, those are pleasures I've somehow missed....NOT.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn
I've sat for hours in traffic jams in many cities around the world and cursed, but at least I've been in the comfort of a modern vehicle, sheltered from the elements, on a reasonably made road, without the all pervading smell of sweaty, defecating horses.

But it's OK for us plebs to suffer

Before you make off the wall comments, with no relevance, try to understand what I have written. I was comparing modern traffic jams with those in earlier times when the horse reigned supreme as motive power on the roads not comparing drivers with pedestrians.

In 1900 there were over 300,000 horses on the streets of London (London County Council figures) all producing tons of excrement and urine on a daily basis which, apart from the health problems, left shoes and clothes filthy, stank to high heaven in summer and produced methane.

Studies for the Virginia Journal of Science have shown that the average horse produces 18 kgs of methane per year, so London's horses in 1900 produced 5.4 MILLION kgs of methane, a major greenhouse gas. Traffic was chaotic moving at around today's speeds.

You don't want cars; diesel buses can produce equivalent pollution in ratio to passengers on board as a private car; electricity for trams has to be produced burning fossil fuels or by nuclear reaction, horses are major producers of greenhouse gas so I guess, in your ideal world, we will all have to walk and only carry what we can manage in our arms, or drag on a sled - though sleds may just involve cutting down trees.

The truth is motorists are a soft touch when it comes to revenue generation.

We don't have a motor industry anymore, some foriegn companies have assembly plants here.

I'm sure you are aware that that is an utter fallacy. Whilst GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan etc. are foreign owned, here they are registered as UK companies, employ UK workers, pay UK taxes, contribute to UK export figures, design cars here which encourages UK talent and support a massive supplier base, the bulk of which is UK owned.

I enjoy a pint of beer or a bottle of wine, both heavily taxed, does any of that money go to building new and better pubs and wine bars?

Why are you comparing apples and pears? General taxation provides for roads as a public amenity for the good of all. Use of pubs is a personal choice leisure activity run by profit making organisations, well capable of building and improving their own premises. Roads help a country function - some might say pubs do the opposite.

BTW, without good roads, your beer would have difficulty reaching your pubs as most breweries are now remote from the bulk of their outlets and, as for wine, I thought you only used local foods. Pray tell, how close is your local vineyard?

You quote Disneyland as somewhere that uses price to control demand. Presumably you equate high peak season prices with a desire to limit numbers, which is a major error. Just like every other business of that nature, they charge the maximum at peak times to extract the maximum profit from the maximum number of visitors. When did any Disneyland last close the gates on a full house or raise the price as a deterrent?

I ran the sales operation at Belle Vue for some years, have studied Disney's methods and visited their U S operations. Once again you are way off beam.

Yes, the same goes for goods, if an item has a high demand that can only be met by increased production and that production can only be increased by capital expenditure then the price goes up to cut demand. It is a common tool, I am suprised that you have a problem with it.

I have a problem with it because it is Through the Looking Glass thinking. It is governments that restrict demand through increasing prices through taxation (e.g. cigarettes). From time to time restricted availability of raw materials force price increases which companies pass on.

I spent 33 years in business from management trainee to CEO and owner of my own company which operated internationally. I worked for both national and international companies with products ranging from textiles to foods, from engineering to leisure venues and conference facilitation and came across the sales and manufacturing methods of companies in more industries than I care to count.

Never have I come across a company that put up its prices of its own volition to slow demand for its products. On the contrary, companies encourage demand by discounting for volume purchase or continuous supply. I've never seen a sales target that hasn't increased ahead of inflation and demanded more sales.

If they run out of production capacity they buy or lease more production - proven demand being something financial institutions understand when considering the funding of new plant - or they licence out production.

When a conference I was organising looked to be getting too big for the venue, I didn't increase prices to dampen demand, I found a bigger venue. Airbus, with over 3,000 A320s on order, can't meet demand as it would wish but is still selling and is opening production in China - and still discounts in competition with Boeing. That is what happens in the real world.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn
At last!...and for many people the quickest and cheapest way is by car, which is also more convenient than queing in all weathers for buses/trams/trains which are often overcrowded, dirty, don't run to time and subject their passengers to other inconveniences.

But then that choice makes public transport overcrowed and unable to run to time. A very high price inflicted on those who use public transport by those who seem to have a good helping of an 'I'm alright Jack' attitude.

Please tell me how people using their own cars makes public transport overcrowded. By your economics, the bus/train companies want less business so, maybe, they have priced travel to reduce demand but have yet to succeed in lowering passenger numbers and are now reducing service to try to drive people away due to overcrowding.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn
I'm all in favour of integrated, efficient, value for money public transport..... The history of public transport is strewn with broken and unattainable promises.

I see, it might all go pear shaped so we won't bother with any improvements to transport (and remember, the money isn't just being spent on public transport). Will they, do you think, really send the new trams back after six months? Will they rip up the new track as well?

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to understand your interpretation of my answers. How you can make such a ridiculous commentary on my statement beggars belief. To illuminate my point, Road Tax was introduced for vehicles "to pay for roads". It has never specifically been used that way but has become part of general taxation. Beeching replaced unprofitable trains with buses - except the buses couldn't run to a profit so were removed leaving vast swathes of rural UK without public transport. The Manchester tram system was feted as the model for the UK to follow and was to have been widely expanded for the 2002 Games. We are still waiting.

No Phil, a very large proportion use their cars in an anti-social manner. they block and break up pavements, they block junctions, they drive at excessive speed, they deliberately impeded buses and so on.

"A very large proportion"??? Utter rubbish. There is a minority of drivers who do this and they should be dealt with - and often are.

we have to start facing up to the fact that there is not an infanite amount of either fuel or road space

In the 1970s we were told that the world would run out of oil by 2010. There would be much more roadspace without bus lanes, thoughtlessly designed ghost islands and if pedestrian overbridges and flow regulation onto urban dual carriageways were widespread, speed limits could be increased to allow greater freedom of movement.

It should receive the money anyway

For the second time we are in total agreement.

[John]

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

This isn't the place for a lesson on accountancy and pricing. Suffice it to say that every claim by a driver is another transaction that has to be checked, entered, repaid and eventually reconciled. .

Don't patronise Phil, it does you no credit. Having been self-employed for the last thirty odd years I do have a passing grasp of accountancy and I can also grasp that a system that automatically registers a payment and collects from an account does not generate a huge amount of paperwork.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

As for charging, different companies will do it different ways the key point that you are missing -or refuse to see - is that the CC will add to costs all round..

The point you are missing is that, for example, a delivery company, centrally placed need pay no congestion charge at all, trunkers in before the inbound charge kicks in and out before the out bound kicks in. Delivery drivers will be leaving the centre when there is no charge and returning when there is no charge. Everybody else can employ a good traffic manager.

you will be on a very limited diet. Even the most organic producers use road transport - as I'm sure you know.[/quote]

Indeed, and I haven't suggested that they don't but there is a world of difference between hauling something by road to the retail outlet ten miles away and hauling something 200 miles to be packed and then being hauled 200 miles back to be sold.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

.......Nobody benefits... but the congestion charge has worked so well in London that Boris is scrapping the west London extension!

Of course there is not the slightest possibility that he is politically motivated is there.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

No. In over 1.5 million miles of driving, running sales forces and being responsible for their car fleets, being a consultant for a courier company and being able to do major car maintenance, those are pleasures I've somehow missed....NOT.

The problem is, and I know this from experience, driving in a car is a totally different experience to being either a pedestrian or bus passenger. Whilst in a car you never see more than a handful of other cars at any one time. I stood near a set of traffic lights for about as long as it took me to smoke a cigarette on Saturday. In that time, and ignoring the drivers who technically drove through a red light but took that as the safest option, eight cars drove through on red lights, even though they could have safely stopped, three of them after the opposing traffic had a green light and was moving. I would not have seen that from a car.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

Before you make off the wall comments, with no relevance, try to understand what I have written. I was comparing modern traffic jams with those in earlier times when the horse reigned supreme as motive power on the roads not comparing drivers with pedestrians.

Ah sorry, I spot your point now, you are reminding me that dispite 100 years of progress, the ready availability of the internal combustion engine and very clever traffic signaling the average speed of traffic in cities has not changed.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

You don't want cars; diesel buses can produce equivalent pollution in ratio to passengers on board as a private car; electricity for trams has to be produced burning fossil fuels or by nuclear reaction, horses are major producers of greenhouse gas so I guess, in your ideal world, we will all have to walk and only carry what we can manage in our arms, or drag on a sled - though sleds may just involve cutting down trees. .

When did I say that I didn't want cars? At no time have I said that I think the charge should apply for 24 hours of the day. If somebody really wants to drive to work and does so by doing it at a time when it does not seriously detract from my quality of life, then the best of luck to him or her.
What I do object to is drivers who think that their rights are supreme and who can impose a hidden congestion charge on me and millions of others without a vote.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

Why are you comparing apples and pears? General taxation provides for roads as a public amenity for the good of all. Use of pubs is a personal choice leisure activity run by profit making organisations, well capable of building and improving their own premises. Roads help a country function - some might say pubs do the opposite.

You can't have it both ways, if roads are paid for out of general taxation, why should all taxes raised from road vehicles be returned to the roads?

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

You quote Disneyland as somewhere that uses price to control demand. Presumably you equate high peak season prices with a desire to limit numbers, which is a major error. Just like every other business of that nature, they charge the maximum at peak times to extract the maximum profit from the maximum number of visitors. When did any Disneyland last close the gates on a full house or raise the price as a deterrent?.

No, when faced with a seasonal demand for some rides though to a point they did increase capacity, they realised that this was not practical, they did not employ an account to sort the problem, they employed a traffic engineer.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

I ran the sales operation at Belle Vue for some years, have studied Disney's methods and visited their U S operations. Once again you are way off beam..

It would be ungentlemanly of me to notice that all that remains of Belle-Vue is the dog track.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

If they run out of production capacity they buy or lease more production - proven demand being something financial institutions understand when considering the funding of new plant - or they licence out production...

Like the American power company that couldn't supply the demand and couldn't raise the capital to build new plant, insted they cut demand by giving away low energy light bulbs.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

Please tell me how people using their own cars makes public transport overcrowded. By your economics, the bus/train companies want less business so, maybe, they have priced travel to reduce demand but have yet to succeed in lowering passenger numbers and are now reducing service to try to drive people away due to overcrowding...

No, it doesn't make public transport overcrowed but it does make it very slow, as much as doubling journey times in some cases.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

"A very large proportion"??? Utter rubbish. There is a minority of drivers who do this and they should be dealt with - and often are.

Utter rubbish! move into the real world Phil, a vast number of drivers consider pavements to be parks, red lights as optional, speed limits as a challenge and pedestrians and cyclists as fair game, and no, unless somebody dies, the police couldn't care less.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Don't patronise Phil, it does you no credit. Having been self-employed for the last thirty odd years I do have a passing grasp of accountancy and I can also grasp that a system that automatically registers a payment and collects from an account does not generate a huge amount of paperwork.

I'm not patronising anyone. You may have been self employed for 30 odd years but what experience have you of employing staff and hiring in free-lancers and dealing with the paperwork they generate. Every extra individual charge attracts paperwork. As you won't accept it from me, with actual experience of a courier environment you really should, as I suggested before, contact the RHA.

The point you are missing is that, for example, a delivery company, centrally placed need pay no congestion charge at all, trunkers in before the inbound charge kicks in and out before the out bound kicks in. Delivery drivers will be leaving the centre when there is no charge and returning when there is no charge. Everybody else can employ a good traffic manager

The point you have totally missed is that most courier/transport firms aren't, and can't afford premises, in the inner ring. You also miss the point that such companies have to deliver over a wide area and to complete a reasonable day's work the drivers have to be on the road by 08.00. The depots do not operate 24/7, most goods for next day delivery arriving at the depots and being sorted by 19.00.

The major international/national carriers may be able to work to your ideal as regards trunk deliveries but the regional/local businesses, which carry a large percentage of deliveries in the UK, can't. Your lack of knowledge regarding goods deliveries was well displayed in your earlier post:

here in Manchester we do not have the courier business to anything like the extent that London does. A fair amount of the courier business that exists is carried by taxis that are exempt. The business are of Manchester is such that it is ideal for cycle couriers.

The vast majority of goods delivered by haulage/courier companies in the UK don't see a trunker but are picked up one day, taken to a local depot, are sorted in the evening and are delivered from the same depot the next day. Rounds are often difficult enough to plan geopgraphically and economically without having to worry about crossing artificial zone barriers at given times. Such rounds are not fixed routes delivering daily to the same addresses but depend on the needs of the customers and the orders they have to fulfill.

Of course there is not the slightest possibility that he is politically motivated is there.

Of course he is, he's pandering to his Tory mates in the Royal Borough - but he's spinning the actual increase in congestion to justify it.

The problem is, and I know this from experience, driving in a car is a totally different experience to being either a pedestrian or bus passenger

I assume you think I've never travelled by bus,or walked anywhere.

In that time, and ignoring the drivers who technically drove through a red light but took that as the safest option,

Please explain how driving through a red light can be the "safest option". BTW, I've done the IAM course and have been on an advanced drivers' security driving course organised by the Met Police for people who may be a security target, or have to drive security targets. Even that course only suggested busting a red light in extremis.

eight cars drove through on red lights, even though they could have safely stopped, three of them after the opposing traffic had a green light and was moving. I would not have seen that from a car.

Why wouldn't you? Just this morning I saw four cars drive through a red light in Tralee - an everyday occurrence in Kerry where the rules of the road are observed more in the breach. I was the fifth in line. I stopped. Such things aren't just observable from the footpath.

drivers who think that their rights are supreme and who can impose a hidden congestion charge on me and millions of others without a vote.

So you complain about being disenfranchised because people have to pay from general taxation for roads you have previously claimed some don't use but don't give a damn for the thousands from outside the area who will have to pay the charge with no say in the matter because thay are "choose to" work in Manchester.

You can't have it both ways, if roads are paid for out of general taxation, why should all taxes raised from road vehicles be returned to the roads?

It was you queried the use of tax raised on the sale of drink.
I didn't say road tax should be returned to the roads. I merely pointed out that road tax was imposed on motorists with a promise the revenue would be used to develop the road network. That never happened.

It would be ungentlemanly of me to notice that all that remains of Belle-Vue is the dog track.

Well done, you surpass yourself. Yet again - and this time whilst aiming a cheap shot - your failure to research and comprehend facts leads you into making an idiot of yourself.

Apart from the fact that Belle Vue Dog Track, which has always been owned by the Greyhound Racing Association, had nothing to do with Belle Vue Amusement Park other than that in 1926 the General Manager helped raise funds to start the GRA, it's obvious your knowledge of what went on at Belle Vue during my time there is equal to what you knew about the way roads are financed. Take a look at The History of Belle Vue -read, learn and perhaps you might just want to think again.

But then that choice makes public transport overcrowed

No, it doesn't make public transport overcrowed

So you've changed your mind?

Utter rubbish! move into the real world Phil, a vast number of drivers consider pavements to be parks, red lights as optional, speed limits as a challenge and pedestrians and cyclists as fair game, and no, unless somebody dies, the police couldn't care less.

Let me tell you something. I've driven in the UK, many countries in Europe, in the US and Canada and the Caribbean on business and pleasure. In my experience and in the view of national and international transport, drivers' and road safety organisations the UK has one of the most regulated, policed and safest road systems in the world.

As with any system, there are people who break the rules but your repeated use of the words "vast number of drivers", as far as the UK goes, is unsupportable and nothing more than unresearched nonsense.

[John]

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

I'm not patronising anyone. You may have been self employed for 30 odd years but what experience have you of employing staff and hiring in free-lancers and dealing with the paperwork they generate. Every extra individual charge attracts paperwork. As you won't accept it from me, with actual experience of a courier environment you really should, as I suggested before, contact the RHA..

max of twelve full time and many more contractors and subs. No computers either to handle the paperwork, all VAT returns written out in long hand.
Individual charges amount to no more than one per driver per week. How many hauliers have been driven to the wall by the Severn Crossing, the Dartford Crossing, Humber Bridge etc.

Originally Posted by Phil Blinkhorn

The point you have totally missed is that most courier/transport firms aren't, and can't afford premises, in the inner ring. You also miss the point that such companies have to deliver over a wide area and to complete a reasonable day's work the drivers have to be on the road by 08.00. The depots do not operate 24/7, most goods for next day delivery arriving at the depots and being sorted by 19.00.

I suspect that many drivers are on the road by 07.30, but that's by the way. I don't miss the point that drivers cover a large area, surely anything that allows them to do a days work in less time, with less stress, lower fuel bills and the opportunity to make more drops in a day is welcome.

The major international/national carriers may be able to work to your ideal as regards trunk deliveries but the regional/local businesses, which carry a large percentage of deliveries in the UK, can't. Your lack of knowledge regarding goods deliveries was well displayed in your earlier post:.

Much of the frieght being carried by small local companies is carried on behalf of major distributors. For example, the local firm that I knew that did mostly motorcycle work used Royal Mail and taxis for long distance!

The vast majority of goods delivered by haulage/courier companies in the UK don't see a trunker but are picked up one day, taken to a local depot, are sorted in the evening and are delivered from the same depot the next day. Rounds are often difficult enough to plan geopgraphically and economically without having to worry about crossing artificial zone barriers at given times. Such rounds are not fixed routes delivering daily to the same addresses but depend on the needs of the customers and the orders they have to fulfill.:.

Obviously rounds are not fixed but no company is going to send a driver familiar with Burnley to do the Wilmslow drops whilst the driver familiar with Wilmslow does the Burnley drops, and anyway, haven't we rather lost the plot here? Isn't the debate about under occupied cars taking up a disproportionate amount of roadspace when couriers want to be about their business and not stuck in traffic jams?

I assume you think I've never travelled by bus,or walked anywhere.

I'm sure that you have, but that you have probably never used either as a main form of transport.

Please explain how driving through a red light can be the "safest option". BTW, I've done the IAM course and have been on an advanced drivers' security driving course organised by the Met Police for people who may be a security target, or have to drive security targets. Even that course only suggested busting a red light in extremis.

Sorry, should have said 'stop' rather than red, techically amber is a stop light but observing it can sometimes collect a big truck on the back bumper.

So you complain about being disenfranchised because people have to pay from general taxation for roads you have previously claimed some don't use but don't give a damn for the thousands from outside the area who will have to pay the charge with no say in the matter because thay are "choose to" work in Manchester..

How much of a damn do the people from from outside the area care about the people whose lifes are blighted by cars?

Well done, you surpass yourself. Yet again - and this time whilst aiming a cheap shot - your failure to research and comprehend facts leads you into making an idiot of yourself..

You make it quite clear that you think that I know nothing, maybe you are correct but one thing that I have learnt is that when people resort to offence and insults they see their own arguement as rather thin and unsupported

So you've changed your mind?..

How?

Let me tell you something. I've driven in the UK, many countries in Europe, in the US and Canada and the Caribbean on business and pleasure. In my experience and in the view of national and international transport, drivers' and road safety organisations the UK has one of the most regulated, policed and safest road systems in the world.

You've already told us how much you drive but you still refuse to say how you think congestion should be reduced. The question is not how safe British roads are-there is all ways room to make them safer- the question is how we prevent our cities grinding to a halt under the weight of private cars and how we can afford to turn down £3bn of inward investment as the country heads into recession.

As with any system, there are people who break the rules but your repeated use of the words "vast number of drivers", as far as the UK goes, is unsupportable and nothing more than unresearched nonsense.

You must have a different definition of reasearch to the rest of us. Sometimes reasearch is carried out in dusty libraries, at other times research is conducted in the field. To say that my observations are unresearched nonsense is without foundation.
If I see my own street jammed with cars parked on the pavement during the day and that during the evening there are only one or two cars parked, that does not constitute unresearched nonsense. If my own observations lead me to the conclusion that well planned bus lanes speed up trip times, that is not nonsense. If I sit on a bus for minutes on end observing that (mostly) car drivers are ignoring the fact that they should give way to buses leaving a stop, neither is that unresearched nonsense.

If you want unresearched nonsense the 'no camp' is overflowing with such gems as Kellogs moving production to Poland if the charge comes in, their main product retails at over £3,000 a tonne. People will have to pay everytime they cross a boundry, at 2007 rates, drivers will pay £1500 a year. Drivers being charged for driving between two points, both of which are outside the charging zones.
I could go on, but why? You are firmly of the opinion that the car is king and we should all make way for it.

And anyway, the referendum is so biased towards the no vote that it is silly assuming that TIF will ever happen.

[mr angry]

As far as I can see the referendum is biased in favour of the yes vote. They have got the Evening News on their side and seem to have got a lot of local bigwigs on their side

I still think it will be a no hopefully

[Sparkly]

sadly, I've voted no. Although the improvements are needed, and I'm unlikely to get charged, I don't support the revenue raising via the c-charge, for many of the reasons already mentioned in this thread. The campaign seems to be based around 'you probably won't have to pay it, someone else will' which seems a poor reason to vote yes. Charges like this always seem to unfairly hit working people who are just above any subsidy level, and lack the flexibility to use public transport, move closer to work or change jobs, at a time when everyone seems to be watching the pennies and hoping they still have a job next week.

[John]

Originally Posted by mr angry

As far as I can see the referendum is biased in favour of the yes vote. They have got the Evening News on their side and seem to have got a lot of local bigwigs on their side

I still think it will be a no hopefully

No, though the MEN is in favour of TIF they are being balanced with their coverage.

The problem with the referendum is that seven out of ten areas have to vote in favour. Converted into a head count this means that 79.6 of the electorate can vote in favour of TIF but still see the much smaller no vote winning.

[John]

Originally Posted by Sparkly

sadly, I've voted no. Although the improvements are needed, and I'm unlikely to get charged, I don't support the revenue raising via the c-charge, for many of the reasons already mentioned in this thread. The campaign seems to be based around 'you probably won't have to pay it, someone else will' which seems a poor reason to vote yes. Charges like this always seem to unfairly hit working people who are just above any subsidy level, and lack the flexibility to use public transport, move closer to work or change jobs, at a time when everyone seems to be watching the pennies and hoping they still have a job next week.

So, the big question that nobody seems to have an answer for, what other method will discourage people from using their cars and bringing the city to a standstill.

Oops,'nother big question, can we really afford to turn down nearly £3billion of inward investment.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

How many hauliers have been driven to the wall by the Severn Crossing, the Dartford Crossing, Humber Bridge etc.

You are changing the point - which was nothing to do with companies going out of business, but everything to do with extra costs and paperwork which will be generated by the charge.

I suspect that many drivers are on the road by 07.30,

Most rounds in courier companies leave the depot between 08.00 and 08.30 because many businesses (particularly offices, small and medium retailers retail and small manufacturers don't take deliveries before 08.30 or 09.00.

surely anything that allows them to do a days work in less time, with less stress, lower fuel bills and the opportunity to make more drops in a day is welcome.

That's not the experience in London.

Much of the frieght being carried by small local companies is carried on behalf of major distributors. For example, the local firm that I knew that did mostly motorcycle work used Royal Mail and taxis for long distance!

Yet again a statement based on a single example which is grossly misleading. According to the RHA the National Couriers Association the bulk of freight carried by small, local companies and the local depots of national companies is generated locally by small and medium sized manufacturing and wholesale companies looking for economic distribution within a radius of 75-100 miles which is an area the Royal Mail does not compete with in any worthwhile respect.

The maximum delivery by Royal Mail is 10kg and, as an example, for a next day delivery from postcode M4 to postcode OL6, the price is £22.70.

On the other hand, Parcel Force does compete.

I have obtained a quote for 10 kgs, next day delivery, from Parcel Force for the same delivery. They want £18.99 I've also obtained two locally based couriers:

Interlink (a franchisee) want £16.10 (and will deliver up to 31Kg for that price), Interparcel Titan want £11.33 for 10 kg.

If the weight goes up to 80 kgs, the prices are £102.99, £47.46 and £63.44.

Even smaller couriers tend to be up to 10% cheaper.

Perhaps the local firm you know needs to do some research to save costs.

but no company is going to send a driver familiar with Burnley to do the Wilmslow drops whilst the driver familiar with Wilmslow does the Burnley drops

I didn't say they did and anyway, most courier companies expect their drivers to learn where customers are on a variety of rounds. After 6 months in the job we expected our drivers to know how to cover rounds as far apart as Portsmouth, Ashford, Central London and Swindon.

Regarding bus use and walking you said:

I'm sure that you have, but that you have probably never used either as a main form of transport

Yet again, way off beam. Seven years travelling by bus from Stockport to Manchester every day to school, including time stuck in traffic jams caused by buses at Platt Fields or Kingsway/Moseley Rd, in the 1950s/early 1960s when the buses were the main way for people to get to work and the school run hadn't been invented.

From 1986 to 1997 I regularly did business in London by train, underground, bus and on foot, not to mention using public transport on business in cities around the world which offer properly integrated and economic methods of travel.

How much of a damn do the people from from outside the area care about the people whose lifes are blighted by cars?

We've been round that point already.

one thing that I have learnt is that when people resort to offence and insults they see their own arguement as rather thin and unsupported

Thanks for explaining why you wrote:

It would be ungentlemanly of me to notice that all that remains of Belle-Vue is the dog track.

in response to:

I ran the sales operation at Belle Vue for some years,

You ask how you have changed your mind. In your post dated 1/12/08 you said, in relation to people choosing to drive cars to work:

But then that choice makes public transport overcrowed

When I asked on 2/12/08:

Please tell me how people using their own cars makes public transport overcrowded

You replied on the same day:

No, it doesn't make public transport overcrowed

If that's not changing your mind, what is?

you still refuse to say how you think congestion should be reduced.

There's no need for me to do so. In essence, the scheme has merit. What is wrong with it, as I initially made clear, is that the vast majority of those who will be charged have no say and there are no guarantees that the improvements will ever happen, given the track record of politicians' handling of transport. If you want an alternative, do as I suggested, read what is happening in the Toronto area - a scheme much more equitable, over a sensible timescale and involving all in the travel to work area.

As to research, your posts are littered with statements which I've shown to be palpably incorrect. I don't think car is king, in fact I've a pretty comprehensive interest in public transport as a historian and a great fan and user of of the public transport systems in cities like Cologne/Bonn, Amsterdam, Zurich etc..

You have every right to express a belief that the congestion charge is the right way to go but backing your belief with some of the statements you've made does your cause no favours.

One final point. As the congestion charge will not apply to vehicles moving within just one zone, how are the major congestion generators of school runs and driving a mile to work or to the shops in rush hour going to be dealt with?

The more I look at the scheme, the more I realise that this is a tax on essential car journeys from outside the selected zones allowing those inside to carry on their - in your terms - non essential trips willy nilly.

[Phil Blinkhorn]

Oops,'nother big question, can we really afford to turn down nearly £3billion of inward investment.

"Afford" being the crux of the matter - for the majority that will have to pay but, as the whole of the travel to work area won't be voting, won't have a say, nor will they benefit from improved public transport operating from outside the zones into the centre.

All they will be expected to do is put up and shut up.