Oct 2, 2023·edited Oct 2, 2023Liked by James O'Malley
Thanks for highlighting the NPP. I would never have heard about it otherwise (until it becomes a mainstream thing). This substack is much more useful than the BBC and Guardian for extracting the important stuff from a press release.
Spot on assessment James - This is the sort of list of weak projects and initiatives that comes out of a panicked, last minute write around to departments for something (anything!) that could be hung on a “backing motorists” hook but without spending any money t or doing anything really new.
I’ve been on the end of enough such write rounds in my time to know the signs!
James, bearing in mind that some people will always need to drive, what are your views on "price per mile" charging ? By the way, I'm just waiting for Labour to win next year so they can sort the railways out, then I'm selling my car.
Yep, am inclined to agree with Charles! Suspect there’s going to need to be some form variable pricing - either on location (city centres, motorways) or time of day. (I hope they can also figure out how to do it so that travel data is anonymised, but not quite sure there’s any way around this).
My back-of-the-envelope idea would be to give everyone x “free” miles per month, and then tax per mile on top of that. And maybe even make surplus miles trade-able? So that normal people are incentivised to cut usage and maybe even make a little money, and trades-people (van drivers and the like) can buy up extra miles at a cheaper rate than they would otherwise pay tax? (Obviously I haven’t really thought this through.)
Why does the NPP have wiggly lines going in and out? Why aren’t they straight?
But yes the principle of open data on parking is good. However.. if company A operates BigCarPark in the middle of BigCity, it might not want the data about how busy it is or isn’t at various times to be shared or queryablr.
Thanks for highlighting the NPP. I would never have heard about it otherwise (until it becomes a mainstream thing). This substack is much more useful than the BBC and Guardian for extracting the important stuff from a press release.
Spot on assessment James - This is the sort of list of weak projects and initiatives that comes out of a panicked, last minute write around to departments for something (anything!) that could be hung on a “backing motorists” hook but without spending any money t or doing anything really new.
I’ve been on the end of enough such write rounds in my time to know the signs!
I agree with Arthur. The NPP sounds like a really useful idea that I hadn’t read about elsewhere.
James, bearing in mind that some people will always need to drive, what are your views on "price per mile" charging ? By the way, I'm just waiting for Labour to win next year so they can sort the railways out, then I'm selling my car.
Ahead of James I’d say that something like it has to happen - lost petrol duty is huge (https://charlesarthur.medium.com/when-every-car-is-electric-what-happens-to-fuel-duty-and-the-electricity-grid-394e92fd74ce) but if you do it on a flat per mile it’s very unfair to rural dwellers who need to drive. So likely heavy charges in cities, light outside.
Yep, am inclined to agree with Charles! Suspect there’s going to need to be some form variable pricing - either on location (city centres, motorways) or time of day. (I hope they can also figure out how to do it so that travel data is anonymised, but not quite sure there’s any way around this).
My back-of-the-envelope idea would be to give everyone x “free” miles per month, and then tax per mile on top of that. And maybe even make surplus miles trade-able? So that normal people are incentivised to cut usage and maybe even make a little money, and trades-people (van drivers and the like) can buy up extra miles at a cheaper rate than they would otherwise pay tax? (Obviously I haven’t really thought this through.)
Any scheme involving tradeables will be targeted for scams. Better avoided.
Why does the NPP have wiggly lines going in and out? Why aren’t they straight?
But yes the principle of open data on parking is good. However.. if company A operates BigCarPark in the middle of BigCity, it might not want the data about how busy it is or isn’t at various times to be shared or queryablr.