TfL hands out contracts for congestion charge tags

what utter tosh

there is already a perfectly adequate logging system in place... they try to wash my bloody windows every time I leave town

6! 6 companies?!

You gotta love bureaucracy.

I mean I am not a know all on the subject but surely it doesn't need 6 companies to develop when the state of Florida already has one identical system up and running?

Mines the one with tags on it...id card, passport, Tfl fob, I'm a collector!

hooky tags...

will be available 3 months later?

Here we go . . .

Now, where are all those people who voted for Boris 'cos Ken did all those nasty things with congestion charging? Not that this announcement means anything as it's just reading the company glossy brochures. Then there's the consultation period and the tendering and the installing and the testing and ripping it all out and getting someone else in to do it properly to take in to account.

Could be a while.

False charging?

The tag is usally a device stuck inside the windscreen. They're commonly used on toll roads and bridges.

It probably makes very little difference if it's stuck permanently or not. You would have to be pretty dedicated or have unusual circumstances to cheat the system. Drive in. Remove the tag. Take public transport out. Attach tag to another car. Drive second car in. Later drive one out. Take public transport back in . Retrieve other car. No, I don't think it'll be a majority sport.

As for just passing accidental charging? The enforcement point is usually a good few yards past the C-charge past here sign. And microwave radio is pretty directional. So I don't think it's likely. Also, the one I remember (from NYC? A long time ago) went beep when it was scanned. You'd need to know if the scanner didn't work, because the penalty for not paying on time is horrendous.

Dead Vulture roadkill, because it was too stupid to realise that humans are so stupid they'll pay £8 to drive in instead of £4 on the tube to get in twice as fast.

Damn and blast

That means they're going to go for the motorcyclists now.

And coming up next...

...will be tinfoil bags for your tags.

Re: False charging?

I guess I'm missing something here, but how is driving two cars into the C-charge zone going to cheat the system? You'd be charged twice and then what?

They'll never work in The Big Smoke

even though they work fine in Japan, SIngapore, Australia and more than 2 dozen developed countries as an efficient and practical measure, you're guaranteed that it will be a complete and utter cock-up of the highest degree done in the UK.

face it, functional infrastructure programmes and the UK are mutually exclusive words. if you don't believe that, just pick up a copy of Private Eye....!

@AC - National rollout

Couldn't agree more! You can see it coming a mile off ( no pun ), nice little sensors all up and down the motorways and major trunk roads. No more road tax, but drive the bugger anywhere outside what you can see from your upstairs bedroom window and we'll have you squeezed for every penny we can get!

The country is slowly returning to the dark ages, can't travel more than 10 miles from your house, fuel costs too much and public transport is crap, plus be back before sundown else the hoodies will have ya!

Let's see.

So every vehicle already has a unique identifier (the number plate) and they've got the tech deployed to read it.

Now they want to spend a load of cash to add a new unique identifier to each vehicle and deploy a whole new load of tech to read that.

But they want to run both systems in parallel, 'cos they know that not everyone will have the new one.

Can anyone else spot the bunch of drooling idiots in this picture? Correct. It's the taxpayers paying the wages of the arseholes who dreamed this one up!

@jeremy

"losing the tax disc?" ..."another one of labours double tax scams"

Er no actually. Road Tax has been around since medieaval times, and is one of the few honest taxes around. You use the roads, you pay tax. If anything, it has recently been made fairer with lower tax for smaller cars.

As for "40 a month to sit in your drive, triple if you use it" what are you talknig about? if its off road its free, and its not the govts fault you drove a truck. And how does it triple when you use it?

So get your facts right.

Wouldn't it be lovely

if every single person, all just stopped driving. 30 odd million people, used public transport or used pedal or foot power. All couriers, van drivers and lorry drivers just decided to use the public transport network to deliver goods.

If everything was a perfect utopia in the greenies eyes.

Granted, the country would be crippled, would lose billions in revenue and the tax man was billions of pounds out of pocket, people dying left right and centre as hospitals closed, food was left rotting in warehouses and on farms. Soon water would be at risk as chemicals ran out, sewage leaking onto streets as drains and sewers fall into disprepair. People unable to call for help as the 999 helpdesks are umanned and when they get throught a parmedic is despatched by pushbike 20 miles away.

What a lovely idea.

Welcome to the 18th century...a Brown & Cameron Production