Talk:London congestion charge/Archive 1

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Collection of un-sectioned comments

Anecdotal I know, but I went into the CC zone last Monday, forgot to pay, called them a week later and they didn't want to fine me. So much for all those cameras!! 86.133.163.191 11:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

This is one of the best pages I have seen. Excellent use of photos. --grouse

Could somebody add a brief description of Central London and its zoning? Is it mainly residential, commercial, industrial, etc.? DanKeshet 01:48 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

I have added a short description. Do you think it is sufficient? Pcb21

It's good! :) Nevilley 14:55 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Thanks! DanKeshet 18:49 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

Congratulations on an amazingly well-written, informative and encyclopaedic article! Looking at its history, I see that it's a real collaborative project as well, so what more could we want? Just one minor thing: Shouldn't we explain who Ken Livingstone is when he is first mentioned in the text? --KF 19:07 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

I think the article could also be improved by including a map of the zone. I have written to Transport for London asking for permission to use one of theirs and am waiting to hear back. Also, there is now talk of expanding the zone (to the west, to include Kensington). If this talk continues as the charge settles down beyond the first week, we should probably add a "Future Developments" section which talks about this. --Pete\Pcb21

Liveness and metaphor ...

I know maybe this article should not be quite so "live", in the long term, but as things develop I thought it might be valuable to have these little updates on progress. Then once it has settled down (if ever!) we can go back and make a more settled version, and take out my (and others') little temporary weeblings. Oh of course if it doesn't ever settle down I will probably be living in a tent near the burnt out ruins of my office and eating dogs and rats, so it won't matter too much to me then. By the way, if there are still quotes or italics or whatever round the use of "bedded down" or whatever was said (if it's still there) I'm removing them, hope you don't mind - it's a perfectly servicable standard metaphor and I can't see why it would need exceptional treatment like a novelty or a piece of a foreign language. :) Nevilley 18:31 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

The CC situation has been consistent in my experience for several weeks now. So perhaps its time to re-consider the "Early Experience.." section. The current offering is upbeat. If I were to make changes they would be less positive... this is largely because my bus (damn that Central line still not reopening!) journey from Tottenham Court Road to Liverpool Street now takes longer than ever - this is due to roadworks rather than more traffic than ever. However I can't believe there is still a 20% reduction, certainly in this area of town. Unfortunately the CC is not in the press any more so I can't find any definitive thanks. Anyone fancy a stab at an update? Pcb21 17:34 Mar 27, 2003 (UTC)

Do they really send the images to Swansea to do the OCR? I would have thought they would do the OCR locally, then only send the details of the non-paying licence plates to Swansea for registered owner data. Otherwise, there's several 100s of camera video streams to send to Swansea: that's a lot of comms, even given dedicated dark fibre to Swansea. On the other hand, the non-payers data could be done accessed over a 2 Mbit link with no problems.

Mmmm, good point. I can't find any evidence either way, but what you say sounds likely. Nevilley 07:21 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

Here are a couple of refs from the DVLA site. None of them seem to support the idea that all the raw image data goes to them. What do you think? Nevilley 07:33 Mar 6, 2003 (UTC)

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/public/business_plan_2002/bp_innovation.htm London Congestion Charging Scheme 7.12. The Mayor of London has decided to proceed with the scheme with effect from February 2003. Under this scheme, we will provide details of vehicle keepers for vehicles identified in the central zone where the relevant charge has not been paid. We will also supply details to enable Transport for London to administer their charging exemption arrangements, for example, for disabled drivers.

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/public/Annual_report_02/ar_char7.htm London Congestion Charging Scheme 7.15 In February 2002 the Mayor of London announced his decision to proceed with the scheme to tackle chronic road congestion in central London with effect from February 2003. Under this scheme the Agency will provide details of vehicle keepers for vehicles identified in the central zone where the relevant charge has not been paid. DVLA will also supply details to enable Transport for London (TfL) to administer their charging exemption arrangements, for example, for disabled drivers.

7.16 Significant development work was undertaken during the reporting period to enable the Agency to supply information to support the scheme. It is the ultimate intention that TfL will provide reciprocal information to assist with improved accuracy of the Agency's database.

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/public/Annual_report_02/ar_char2.htm launched the Automatic Number Plate Reader (ANPR) system on the road in support of VED enforcement; developed systems and processes to support the introduction of congestion charging for vehicles within London;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/congestion/technology.shtml is also non-definitive but suggests raw video/image data does not go far, at least not as far as Swansea! I am about to change the article so that it fits in with the facts we've collectively unearthed (and they seem surprisingly hard to find - TfL and Capita don't appear to want to tell people exactly how things work!) and hopefully it won't be too vague. Pcb21/Pete

There was a (Time Out? Guardian?) article recently which suggests that Capita have two large Congestion Charge data centres in London (live and a backup), which suggests that processing is done locally. The Anome 09:34 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

Aha! Here's a definitive reference: from http://www.londontransport.co.uk/tfl/cc_fact_sheet_enforcement.shtml

Fair-use excerpts:

"The main hub site where the camera data arrives is located in central London."
"the main ANPR system is housed at the hub site"

and it confirms the existence of a back-up site. Also: "All payment data is stored at two data centres just outside the M25." so that's up to four data centres in all. The Anome 09:37 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

Well done you two, that's brilliant. It did seem daft if they were really shipping out all the raw video down the M4 (or maybe by train). btw I saw the mobile unit in Aldersgate St recently (see photo) and it was quite interesting - you could see inside where a huge monitor showed the camera view - a lot of number plates driving past, basically! :) Nevilley 09:58 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

A question: since (I believe) the charge applies to all vehicles moving within the zone, do they also check for cars exiting the zone? That way, they get two chances to capture the plate info, greatly increasing reliability. Also, do they try to capture both front plates and back plates (look forward, look back)? If they do both, this would give up to four chances for a successful capture of the plates of a car that both enters and exits, and opens the possibility for a lot of extra consistency-checking given the redundant data. The Anome 09:54 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

I am fairly sure they don't look at the front of the cars. This is (apparently) a big issue in the Data Protection world. See The Register article linked to in the article for a fuller discussion (which I haven't quite fathomed yet! Pcb21/Pete

Yep I am sure there are cameras pointing OUT, the mobile certainly was and the permanent installtion in Aldersgate St seems to be about 50/50 each way. Nev

Oops, sorry The Anome I managed to start editing just as you were. I will hold fire until you are happy as you've found the really good info! Pcb21/Pete

OK, I've stopped now. I guess our "I Spy" daily task is now to estimate the sight-lines of the CC cameras, to see if the speculation above is true. Does anyone have any definitive evidence, like pictures given as evidence for a fine? The Anome 10:05 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

I might have a look round there at lunchtime. Just to clarify, is your thesis that they might be trying to get front and back on the same car at the same time - that is, that cameras on pole X will be looking at Y Rd southbound side in TWO places, fore and aft?? I sort-of-doubt this, feeling it's more likely that they are doing Y rd north and southbound only and that it doesn't matter whether they are getting front or back off the car in one hit, because it is likely that some other camera will get the other. I suspect there must be quite a lot of redundancy on all but the shortest journeys. But, I'll stop speculating, and go and see what I can learn! :) Nevilley 10:10 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

PS while I took the mobile photo an old chap came up to me and said "I'd set it on fire if I was you." Wasn't entirely sure how to respond so grinned weakly. Nevilley

I removed Oslo from the list of congestion charged cities, as the toll plaza ring of Oslo has a completely different goal, namely to fund road construction that would otherwise be heavily delayed, rather than reduce traffic. There has, however, been a discussion on whether toll rates should be higher in rush hours, but this has not (yet) been implemented.

chrmb

Seems fair enough! :) Nevilley 21:12 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)

Well done Pete for "early exp" rewrite! :) Nevilley 21:12 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)

I notice the article mentions a five-pound fee and then (in parentheses) gives conversions to euros and dollars. It seems to me that this conversion will be out of date rather quickly as the conversion rates change. Is there a Wikipedia standard on references to monetary units? It would be nice to have a way to refer to quantities of money by including a year, so that instead of saying 5 British pounds, we can say "5 British pounds (2003)" or something similar and have it do conversions automatically. It will also help put currency references into proper historical perspective. Chadloder 21:14 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)

Interesting point but how long will they take to become wildly inaccurate? At the moment they are just approximations anyway (certainly, the ones I did include roundings etc) and I think the intention is just to give foreign readers a flavour of the order of magnitude of the charge rather than trying to give them a precise figure. Nevilley 21:38 Mar 29, 2003 (UTC)

I removed the sentence that claimed Steven Norris had stopped promising to scrap the CC since the apparent success of the scheme. He hasn't stopped - I heard him call it a plague the other day - it's just that the CC isn't in the spotlight anymore Pcb21 16:28 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)

Good news! I have received permission from TfL to use one of their maps showing the zone. The image is embedded inside a PDF so I will have to spend a little time extricating it to a JPG/PNG before adding to article (Any experts at this feel free to email me so that it can be done more quickly) Pcb21 16:28 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)

If you give me the URI and page number/etc. of the map, I can extract it (very) easily.

James D. Forrester 04:10 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

Oh thanks for agreeing to do this, James. The pdf is at [1]. It is very detailed so I'll leave it you to figure out the best way to display it. Pcb21 07:22 May 9, 2003 (UTC)

I can't believe TfL have agreed for it to come under the the GNU Free Documentation License, did they actually agree to that? -fonzy

I agree that it does seem a little unlikely; as such, I have made available the image in four different sizes and two different formats (PNG and JPG) on my personal server (located here), so access will be a little slow. Which one(s) should I upload? Also, I think we should wait to upload them, so as to shield Wikipedia from possible action, until we are sure that TfL actually did agree to the GFDL, and did understand what that meant.

James D. Forrester 16:58 May 10, 2003 (UTC)

I am away from my home PC at the moment and as such don't have access to the email exchange I had with TfL. Basically I explicitly asked ( a la boilerplate request form ) for GFDL permission. Their response mentions Wikipedia but not the GDFL specifically, IIRC. Tomorrow I will post the emails here and we can make a decision whether they bothered to understand the GDFL before saying yes. Incidentally, I believe the copyright situation for images is not the same as text. Where do maps come into this? Further, out of interest, why do you think TfL would be against the GFDL in this matter? Pcb21 13:30 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

As promised the emails re use of congestion charge maps:

--- My email ---

Dear Mr Livingstone,

Firstly please accept my apologies for bothering you with a relatively unimportant query. A copy of this email was originally sent to a more appropriate address (webmaster@tfl.gov.uk) but received no response. Please forward to a member of your team as you deem appropriate.

Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/) is a free online encyclopaedia that is collaboratively-edited by volunteers from around the world. The content of the encyclopaedia is entirely free for anyone with an internet connection to use and comes without time-limitations or advertisements.

The Wikipedia currently contains an article about the London Congestion Charge (it may be viewed at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge). The contributors believe the article is a balanced and informative article about the Charge. However we believe the article could be greatly improved if we included a map showing where the zone of operation. TfL produce such maps (e.g. at https://www.cclondon.com/WebCenterBrandedTR4/StaticPages/DetailMapCCZ.pdf ) and we would very much like to incorporate that or similar material designated by you into the article. We can only do so if you are willing to grant us permission to use it under terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. This means that viewers of the page will have the right to copy the map. You can read the text of the license in full at: http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License. We believe a good article would also be beneficial to the aims of TfL and the Mayor's office, promoting public awareness of their aspirations and achievements.

This license also expressly protects authors "from not being considered responsible for modifications made by others" while ensuring that authors get credit for their work.

If you agree, we will credit you for your work in the resulting article's references section by stating that the article was based on your work and is used with permission. We do and will continue to provide a link to both Transport for London and the Congestion Charge homepages. Thank you for your time. Yours sincerely, Peter Bartlett, Wikipedia author

--- Their reply ---

Dear Mr Bartlett

Transport for London hereby give permission for you to use our map of the congestion charging zone on the Wikipedia website and you may also use the congestion charging logo if needed.

Please find attached a copy of the Congestion Charging Map, you will need Adobe Acrobat version 5 or higher to access this. If you have any questions, please contact us on 0845 900 1234 or visit our website www.cclondon.com. Thank you for contacting Transport for London.

Yours sincerely

MAGGI CORBY

Customer Services Manager

--- End of emails

So should we use the maps or not? Pcb21 20:12 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

YES. It's a very clear permission as I see it. It's great! Use the maps! :) Nevilley 21:04 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

OK, well, they're now uploaded to Media:London-CC-map-small.png and Media:London-CC-map-large.png and I've made a first stab at putting them in the article. Comments, anyone?

James D. Forrester 22:55 May 12, 2003 (UTC)

I think you've done a fantastic job, James. The small map in the article looks very good IMO. I added a couple of empty lines so that the 'Enforcement' header is below the map but other than couldn't think how to make it better! Pcb21 08:08 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Thank you very much; it was really no problem, though. I'm happy to provide similar services for other articles; if anyone knows of one, please leave a message on my talk page pointing me towards it.

James D. Forrester 10:58 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Will do, James.

Incidentially out of curiousity I googled for 'London Congestion Charge'. The wikipedia article comes 25th hit. Googling for ' "London Congestion Charge" ' (i.e. with the quotes) gets it in at 19. Not bad for a subject that has a lot of pages written about it!

Pcb21 12:41 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

I just re-did the Google search to see where the Wikipedia article comes -- Googling with the quotes now makes us the 5th hit, and we're the 6th hit without quotes! :) Arwel 11:03, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Hey, hey. The competition from the big news websites must be fading away, and Wikipedia's star must still be rising. I added this page to Wikipedia:Top_10_Google_hits,_L-Z. Pete 19:55, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

(to Village Pump) There's currently a (very minor) edit-war going on in the London congestion charge page about whether the caption on the final picture, which shows a one of the signs that indication one is leaving the charge scheme area, should read "'London Congestion Charge Zone Ends' sign", which is just a re-reading of the content of the picture, after all, or "You are now leaving the London Congestion Charge article", or some an otherwise similar wording of either. There's a vote going on on the talk page over whether it should be changed to the former from the latter after remaining as it was for many months; the primary charge against keeping the wording is that wikipedia should remain bereft of humour and human touches, as they smack of improfessionalism. Of course, the wording I've just used is somewhat POV, but we're getting tired of people editing it back and forth. Would anybody else like to weigh-in with their vote? James F. 16:49 18 May 2003 (UTC)

Professionalism is a *bad* thing, but even if it weren't, the British convention is to put humourous captions on all photos even in The Economist, newspapers, etc. While the issue is a wonderful one to help dolts self-identify, it should be resolved in your favour, especially for such a UK article. "You are now leaving..." is the reader's POV, one for which there is little enough respect around here as it is.

I noticed that Patrick has twice changed the 'You are now leaving the Congestion Charge article' picture title to 'You are now leaving the Congestion Charge sign'. I think the former, allowing a little humour, is slightly better, as apparently does the originally writer, Nevilley, who reverted Patrick's initial change. But no point in having an edit war of something so trivial, so what is the majority opinion? Pcb21 16:57 16 May 2003 (UTC)

Apologies, have just read the history and it was actually fonzy who reverted back to 'sign' from 'article' (not Patrick a second time).

Votes for "sign":

fonzy
Patrick
Tarquin
AnonUser1
mav (this is just silly)

Votes for "article" :

Nevilley
pcb21
James F.
AnonUser3, crikey another anonymous user, how remarkable
Martin

I can see that the article is ending, I do not need a message to tell me. Also Wikipedia is not a joke book. Altough it is not a very funny joke anyway.

I am an anon user so will now call myself: AnonUser2

Those last two sentences show that you appear to have missed the point. No it isn't supposed to be a laugh out loud joke. That sort of thing would actually be more inappropiate than what was actually there - a little witticism, almost like a little present to the reader who's got this. This sort of thing is extremely common in 'professional' publications. Pcb21 14:34 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Fonzy is correct in saying that it is not professional. No other encylopedia would do this. Also it is an image caption and should say what the image is. And when writing an enyclopedia you have to assume everyone is very stupid. If I was stupid I would still not know what that sign was. All I would know is that the article is finishing, which like the previous anonuser said is very very obvious.

Yes, but Wikipedia isn't "any other encyclopedia", it's different. What others do should not your, and does not my, life run. Wikipedia is different, it can be quirky, and we should work within that framework, not seek to destroy it and render it into, as Nevilley says (below), a po-faced tome of endless soliloquy voyaging on the sea of eternal ennui. Humour is a form of rhetoric that can be considered a very powerful tool of language; especially when trying to keep the interest of the reader up to the extent required to urge him (or her) to contribute. I find it difficult to believe that people will be discouraged from the project, in either a passive user capacity or active contributor role, by suchwise idle use of 'unprofessional' wordings. To remove all humour would be to start down the slippery slope that would, one day, rent the very fabric of Wikipedia and destroy its 'soul', and I see no especial reason in favour of doing so, given the justification merely that all the cool kids are doing it or somesuch nonsense.

James F. 12:06 17 May 2003 (UTC)

I don't think Wikipedia should be "quirky". Could we move this chunk of debate out of the vote list? -- Tarquin 08:35 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Quirky is perhaps the wrong word. But please remember Tarquin we are writing an encyclopedia in the hope that other humans will read it. Slipping in the occasional slightly humourous turn of phrase, whilst remaining entirely factual(!), is very common in publications whose 'professionalism' is undoubted (The Economist,The Daily Telegraph). Pcb21 14:34 23 May 2003 (UTC)

Just a couple of points:

I don't know where it says no humour - even if it's not very funny - is allowed on Wikipedia. It's not even a joke, really, just a gentle way of leaving the article which might make someone smile a little, in which case, good.
Please stop lambasting me with this term "professional". It is not having the desired result, believe me.
"Although" is spelt thus. Fonzy and AnonUser1 both please note.
The replacement caption proposed does not work. Think about it. It doesn't say you are now leaving anything anywhere in real life, so half-arsed attempts to modify the current caption are doomed to failure. The picture is actually self-captioning, if you think about it.

If we decide that no attempt at a tiny smile is ever allowed on Wikipedia it will be a very sad day. One of its delights is where people have allowed a tiny bit of humour to creep in, without spoiling the sense of the article. It adds rather than detracts.
I would give you examples of lots of places where other people - not me - have written things which express precisely what is meant in a perfectly, er, professional way but also permit me a small smile at their way of saying it or at an interesting metaphor. However if I did so this list would undoubtedly be used by some humourless person as an index of articles urgently needing attention to make them into proper WikiNoHumour(TM) articles, so I won't.
Professional - whatever it does mean (if anything) does not have to mean po-faced. Po-faced is boring and bad and pompous. Po-faced limits understanding and makes things grey and meaningless.
The article has survived, without apparently causing major damage to human understanding of the charge, for months before this current intervention became "necessary".
Do I sound pissed off? I am.
Saying "Look" at me followed by "LOOK" is also not going to have the desired effect either.
There are probably more important things on this entire encylopaedia to worry about. :)

Good night. Nevilley 00:03 17 May 2003 (UTC)

Hi All, this is a really good article and a great example of collaborative editing. Everyone involved with writing, proof reading and copy editing this article should be proud of themselves. This is, however, being slightly tainted by the fact that the most recent 10-15 edits consist mainly of bickering over one unimportant word. A consensus on this needs to be reached after which the chosen word should be left alone. Until this consensus is reached could the word be left alone, filling the edit history with these minor reversions is pretty pointless. Please don't make the edit history here similar to the one at Communist state. Could I suggest that you throw yourselves upon the mercy of the Village pump? Advertise the vote there and get some outside input, the issue of whether small jokes like this are acceptable might have come up before and a precedent may already have been set. Whatever happens, one side is going to have to give in, whichever side it is, it would be nice if they could do so graciously. Personally, I have no interest in which is chosen, I don't think either option will harm the Wikipedia, all I would say is that if the 'article' option is chosen then sometime in the future someone who was not part of this debate will probably change it to the 'sign' option. For this reason it may be better to choose the 'sign' option but as I've siad, neither option will offend me. Please clear this up -- Ams80 10:05 18 May 2003 (UTC)

I changeed ti to: "London Congestion Charge Zone Ends Sign" which soem anon IP put, i think it sounds better as its describing teh acutal image better. -fonzy

BTW i do not appreciate, my name being indirectly put down in vote with out anyone telling me.

Sorry everyone that was not me, it was my "friend" who is with me at the moment. He was imitating me (very well actually, typos and all.), he wrote down my opinions while I was getting some food. He also did one of the things that was on my todo list :-s

I guess the final vote then is 5-4, good game good game. Those who've taken an interest in this article over the last three months or so will have noticed the extensive effort User:Nevilley took in improving this article... going out in his lunch break to take photos of signs and all. It's a shame that he has decided to take a break from the project (see his User page).. I know he has improved a hell of a lot of other pages too... Let's hope it wasn't because of this silly little word! Pcb21 14:34 23 May 2003 (UTC)

no vote is ever final ;-)

I tried for what might be a way of pleasing both sides - if anyone wants to revert me out of hand, do so :) Martin 22:52 12 Jul 2003 (UTC)

(A six week belated reply) You got reverted out of hand pretty quick :-). Interestingly though with your vote and an admission of ballot-stuffing on the other side, it may well be that those in favour of "article" now carry the day... what happens when a vote contradicts policy? (If indeed we have a policy on the total exclusion of all levity from the 'pedia! (note: hyperbole) ) Pete 09:37, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Near the top of the article, it currently states:

"...entering, leaving or moving around within the Congestion Charge zone between 7 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., Monday to Friday. From 10:00 pm the charge is doubled to £10 (~?15, US$18): this is intended to cut the number of last-minute payments..."

This is slightly confusing, since the 10pm falls well outside the 7am-6:30pm mentioned in the preceding sentence. Thinking about it, I'm guessing that the point is that you can pay after you leave, as long as it's the same day; or, alternatively, that you are encouraged to pay more than a few hours in advance. Come to think of it, I just plain don't understand. Could somebody add a sentence to clarify please? - IMSoP 15:59, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You were right first time, you can pay after you leave - before 10pm on day of travel = £5, before midnight = £10, within 14 days = £40,... I tend to pay mine whilst actually sitting in the zone in traffic jams so I don't forget. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 16:44, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. - IMSoP 17:50, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I just spotted this new BBC story - it seems to have some more stats on the impact on shops etc which you might want to add to the article. fabiform | talk 19:54, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Changed "aim" to "stated aim". The intention being the (perhaps slightly pedantic) point that the real reason and stated reason could be different. For example the real reason could be revenue generation rather than to encourage cycling. --Mat 18:12, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Someone has recently altered all the image markup for this article, using a mass of divs and tags and so on. Now the images look ok, but aren't we supposed to use the wiki image markup for things like this? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:13, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

To be honest, I think the page looks a lot more professional now that the amendments to those images have been made.

I don't disagree, but that should be a site-wide decision on how the image markup gets translated into HTML, and not local to this page. Maybe this page should be pointed out to whoever controls the code that creates those ugly grey boxes? Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:31, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

One thing I noticed while reading through the article is the line which reads -

There are fifty additional camera installations within the zone intended to increase the probability of catching vehicles that have entered the zone without being caught on entry or exit.

Wouldn't it make more sense if it was shortened to -

There are fifty additional camera installations within the zone intended to increase the probability of catching vehicles that have entered the zone without being caught.

ChicXulub 16:20, 31 Mar 2004 (GMT)

I will reword that point. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:31, 31 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Ke4roh's edit of 6th August introduced a vast amount of text into the photo captions, much of it simplistic and unnecessary. I have read the article about captions to which Ke4roh refers and while I agree with much of what it says, I do not think it grants carte blanche to reword every caption in this way - the caption edits here, while endeavouring to improve the informational content, have diminished the article's good taste and common sense. As an ex-user with no real further interest in this article I will leave it to others to worry about this but the first one was more than I could tolerate, so I didn't. It didn't need an essay and it didn't need the patronising tone of voice, for example "Drivers at a roundabout can learn which places have congestion charges by reading the signs." That was over the top. 82.35.17.203 10:40, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I support your edit and your motivations for it. Pcb21| Pete 16:48, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Scooter charges

I hear on the grapevine Ken is even considering starting to charge for scooters? Is that the case? I sold the car to get a scooter... what next??

When will he "scoot off"? (sorry)

Payment?

Can somebody please add to this page explaining how you go about paying for the charge? Cheers.

Public Oppinion

One thing i missed was some information on the public oppinion to the charge, otherwise great job! 137.226.135.138 10:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Cambridge Road User Charging

It was suggested by a recent edit that Cambridge had Road User Charging in 1993 using this document as evidence [2]. In fact the only trial which took place was a demonstration in principle. The public were never made to pay a road user charge in Cambridge. --Richard Clegg 08:50, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I saw your made a full revert. Is it not worth mentioning at all then? I don't know either way so wanted to check. Pcb21 Pete 09:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure -- I wanted to mention it on the talk so you didn't think I was just being rude or dismissing it. There have been several such demonstrations in principle of road pricing. I am not sure wether the one you mention was the first (I doubt it was, the subject was well studied by 1993 in academic circles though I cannot definively think of an earlier experiment off hand so I may be wrong). I think the key thing is that they were all with volunteers taking part in an experiment (though I'm not aware of the exact details of that particular experiment). If it was to be mentioned then perhaps a passing remark about "Experiments on the effectiveness or otherwise of road pricing schemes had been tried in other places." and give the reference. That might be more appropriate on road pricing though? --Richard Clegg 09:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

A mention like that on road pricing sounds good to me. Pcb21 Pete 10:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Box 3 of the reference says vehicles were charged, and this is my recollection. It was a trial, but it was I think also a real working congestion charge. I left the Singapore 1998 date in just in case this was controversial. Stephen B Streater 10:44, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[Oops -- fumbled thumbed editing there -- good job this is only the talk page. Sorry]. In studies I have seen a pool of volunteers were given money, had devices fitted to their car and then had some of the money they were given taken back. I think this is what is being referred to here. I worked briefly on computer modelling of congestion charging in Cambridge in 1995 and at no point was it ever mentioned to me that there was or had ever been a real charge in place. This doesn't mean it didn't happen of course. The Durham charge scheme was widely reported as the first in the UK (that was a year before London I think). If charge had been implemented on the public in Cambridge then I'm amazed it wasn't more widely reported (especially since I've attended many presentations about road charging). I'm certainly not an expert and it could be that it has somehow escaped my attention but to me the linked article seems to refer to a demonstration in principle not a trial to the public. --Richard Clegg 11:16, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I've moved the Cambridge mention to Road pricing, and added a mention of its experimental nature. It may need a bit of integration into the article. Stephen B Streater 18:05, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I am a year 11 doing coursework on the congestion charge, what are the positive economics with the charge in terms of busses and trains?????? <3 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.253.192.37 (talk) 11:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Tax or toll?

I see someone has added the category "Motoring tax in the UK". The authority claims it is a toll, not a tax (see dispute with embassies). Was this resolved? Stephen B Streater 08:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Unless I missed the resolution in the paper, it is still on-going, and worthy of a mention here. Pcb21 Pete 08:32, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Portal link

Is it typical to link to the London portal at the top of the page? Seems strange to me. -Joshuapaquin 03:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms of the charge - off topic?

In the "Criticisms of the charge" section of the article there are sections about the company that implements the charge (Capita). References are provided, but these make no reference to the charge. I've already deleted the paragraphs about Capita once. Surely they belong in the Capita Group article only, not here? Alex Sims 00:56, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I would say that it is perfectly valid to discuss the pedigree of a company with which TfL chooses to associate itself over the charge. -- de Facto (talk). 09:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not valid to discuss the pedigree of anything. That would be violation of NPOV. You should cite someone who relates Capita and its bad pedigree and the London Congestion Charge. It's not our job to build arguments (thats OR). And another thing (after re-reading the NPOV policy). It would be good if the criticism section could be eliminated and folded into the article. A separate section acts to marginalise the criticism. Alex Sims 11:37, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, if it's someone else's "synthesis", as this is, it is OK. Perhaps we need a section about the choice of 'provider' to put it in. -- de Facto (talk). 13:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

How do you pay?

I might have missed it in the article, but how does one pay for the toll? Is it through the internet, or are their physical places where you can pay the toll? Regards, -- Jeff3000 00:05, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Covered under "Unusual aspects" --Redaktor 22:46, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Back to at least good article status

As a former featured article it is a shame that this seems to have fallen so far behind. I have undertaken quite a bit of work on it today, but they are loads of unreferenced statements and bits of POV in there. I have also restructured the article to bring the various bits together to try and make it more coherent. Does anyone have any good sources for the rest of the fact tag? Regan123 15:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. I have referenced the article now except for the 1970s scheme. Does anyone have a reference for that? Regan123 03:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

By the date I am guessing it formed part of the Greater London Development Plan which according to [3] is available in at least one library in every borough. MRSC • Talk 10:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Oops, not watching this for some reason. I will get along to a library in a few weeks. Thanks for the info. Cheers, Regan123 17:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

GA review

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is reasonably well written.
a (prose): b (MoS):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.
a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.
a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
It is stable.
It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
Overall:
a Pass/Fail:

It's still a bit messy, but seems to have stabilised. Bits of it still wander off topic slightly, and I won't sign it off as stable given the number of recent edits, but there's no recent signs of edit warring so it doesn't seem to be a concern. My only concern is that it doesn't properly discuss the western extension - a casual reader would be left unaware of the huge controversy this generated - but other than that I have no hesitation in passing it — iridescent (talk to me!) 20:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi and thanks for the review. I want to expand the Western Zone definitely which is my next plan to get this back to FA status. What sections do you think wander off a bit as I would like to tighten the prose there as well. Cheers, Regan123 20:13, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

If I were rewriting this, my concerns would be:

Not until quite far down the article is it actually explained what the CC is, and the lead paragraph is misleading; the CC isn't a charge for entering the zone - that would be a New York-style toll - but for being in the zone. A car entering NYC and staying for a week would only pay once, while leaving a car parked on the street in the CC zone would result in a nasty surprise when you got home

Done - i've rearranged the article. Hope it is still logical.

The "history" sections wanders a bit; while I do think it's necessary, to illustrate that road pricing isn't a wholly alien concept in England, it includes parts that would be more suited to further down (such as what's done with the money). Also, in discussing the Severn Crossing etc it leaves off the most obvious predecessor, the Durham City congestion charge.

Done - rewritten to be a bit more general, removed some minor commentary, added brief ref to Durham and created new income / expenditure section. It probably wanders a bit, but I hope it is more logical.

The map is out of date and doesn't include the western extension; the caption's also misleading as the zone boundary doesn't exactly follow the inner ring road

Doing... - fixed the caption but am not sure where to get a map from.

My personal opinion - and this is just an opinion - is that there's no point listing every road that constitutes the boundary. If they are going to be listed, the short roads that will never warrant an article probably shouldn't be redlinked, as it looks messy and also could encourage people to waste time trying to create stubs for them. (You of all people should be aware of what would happen were someone to write Edith Grove (A3220 road))

Done - These seem to have reduced a bit and I've summarised them a bit more.

Technical nerdy point - the statement about "residents of the zone receive a discount" is incorrect; the discount zone has different boundaries to the CC zone itself

Done - I have not defined the zone, but added references to it as I think it will end up like the original boundary lists.

If it can be sourced, I'd suggest adding to the "Effects" section a bit about the rise in false number plates and non-standard font plates, since this is one of the most visible effects of the charge.

Done partly on what I can source. Will continue to look for more info the dodgy fonts - have heard about this, but cannot find anything - even in the pounce on anything anti Ken Evening Standard.

As previously mentioned, the debate over the western extension ought to be covered in a lot more detail; at present one of the main criticisms - that it extended the discount to residents of London's wealthiest area while effectively cutting off the poorer half of Westminster from the rest of London - isn't addressed.

Doing... - I've added a bit more. I'm looking for sources on the rest. I'm doing this backwards - search for sources and then write from them, rather than the other way around.

All of these are fairly minor points though - it's good to see the article back on track

OK thanks. Will try and address these over the next few days if I get chance.Regan123 21:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

History- Toll Roads

I'd like to add the Mersey Tunnels, or possibly one of the articles about the specific tunnels, into the opening of the history section, to show that there's more than bridges that are tolled in the UK. However, I think adding it to the statement probably means too many examples, so which of the bridges do people think should be dropped, or should the status quo be held?Enlightened Bystander 20:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I've made it a bit more general. Hope you prefer this version, but as always I welcome comments. Regan123 (talk) 20:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

for a more relevant London-based example you could cite the Dulwich College estate's turnpike road that leads off the South Circular.Ephebi (talk) 11:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Done I've added a link in the introduction. Regan123 (talk) 15:35, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

misleading statistics

The key "Effects" section was using partial statistics extracted from the annual reports. It also seemed to confuse congestion with traffic numbers. I found the 2007 report quite interesting (am I that sad?) so I've gone through it and reworked the section for accuracy. Also it would inform the political view if there was a figure that identified the %age of the mayor's income that is derived from this source. Does anyone know this? Ephebi (talk) 11:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm still looking for it. I was going to tabulate or graph the figures this weekend. Regan123 (talk) 12:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I've found the audited accounts in the TfL website, and noted the values in the Costs & expenditure section. Problem is, when you can get comparable figures from the comparison table (which would seem to have been extracted from the annual impacts monitoring report for 2007, page 122) they bear only a passing relationship to the statement of accounts (note 26)! They say these are provisional figures but even so they are way out in operational expenses & other costs. Ephebi (talk) 18:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I looked at them last night and couldn't make head nor tail of which is more accurate. I worry that we have differing figures though. I will try and look at some news sites or elsewhere to see if anyone has worked their way through them. Regan123 (talk) 22:00, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I looked at the official figures cited for both sets of numbers. I suspect the problem is three-fold - 1) the table is based on provisional figures before the Statement of Accounts was produced. 2) IME the table's figures were probably produced by some hapless oik who had to build up his figures from scratch, and so uses a different basis, and then has to perpetuate this format to measure trends. 3) the Accounts had to withstand an auditor, so had to include a more thorough set of expenses, financing & depreciation costs. In many businesses someone would have picked this up when some smart Alec inside tried to marry the working figures to the Accounts, but not here. Then again, as I have gone through the report I have also noticed a little bit of "wishful thinking" creep into the summaries, which makes me wonder how well they really want to understand the numbers. Ephebi (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Copy edit question

From the Longer term effects section: "The original zone is showing a 4% increase in congestion following expansion of the congestion charge and the introduction of extended to discounts to residents of the new zone and buffer zone."

Not sure what that's trying to say. --Malleus Fatuarum (talk) 16:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The extended zone is far more residential than the original zone, so more people are eligible for the residents' discount, in addition, some areas just outside the extended zone have also been made eligible for the discount. Following the expansion of the zone, traffic congestion has increased by 4% in the area that was covered by the original zone. David Underdown (talk) 17:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Does this statement actually mean there are longer journey times? Technically congestion is being used here in the context of an average increase in "standard" journey times that were measured by TfL when compared to the time before the zone. However I've noticed that journalists have often got confused and use this same term to describe an increase in traffic volume (which may, or may not, result in delays to journey times). For that reason, my edits have ignored news reports & been based on the original reports which were precisely worded. Ephebi (talk) 17:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)