National Road Pricing is technically feasible. If we started with just the motorway network where over 20% [15] of total vehicle miles are driven, it has been estimated that there are approximately 800 motorway intersections and junctions. This could require of the order of 1,600-2,000 camera sites, depending on where they are located and the configuration of slip roads, to measure distance driven and detect entry and exit location. This is only ten times the scale of the London scheme in terms of vehicle detection sites. Regarding customer payment channels, there is now much greater take up of digital channels than in 2003, so payment facilities for the occasional user as well as regular users should be much easier to implement at lower unit cost per transaction. Given the better quality of DVLA's registration data and greater opportunity to have account based payment, it should also be easier to accurately bill UK drivers for their usage and enforce against non-payers. We conclude that a national scheme is eminently feasible for the United Kingdom.

Chapter Contents:

• 13.1 Introduction to the project
• 13.1.1 Our roles and the team
• 13.1.2 Making it real
• 13.1.3 Our leadership
• 13.2 Why congestion charging
• 13.2.1 So why did London need congestion charging?
• 13.2.2 What was the history?
• 13.2.2.1 The history of the idea
• 13.2.3 Where does the scheme operate?
• 13.2.4 What problem were we solving?
• 13.2.5 What was the public's reaction?
• 13.3 How does it work?
• 13.3.1 Customer channels and payment of a charge
• 13.3.2 Vehicle detection and camera images
• 13.3.3 When things go wrong
• 13.4 Complementary measures
• 13.5 Implementation
• 13.6 Expansion, other schemes and the opportunity for a 'shared service'
• 13.7 What about national road pricing?
• 13.7.1 What are the arguments?
• 13.7.2 Is it feasible?
• 13.8 Conclusions
• References
• Further reading

Inspec keywords: image sensors; traffic engineering computing; public administration; object detection; road pricing (tolls)

Other keywords: motorway intersections; national road pricing; slip roads; DVLA registration data; UK drivers; junctions; United Kingdom; vehicle detection sites; national scheme; motorway network; camera sites; customer payment channels; vehicle miles; account based payment; digital channels; London congestion charging

Subjects: Traffic engineering computing; Optical, image and video signal processing; Computer vision and image processing techniques; Image sensors; Public administration