[microcolonel]

I never really understood why governments insist on restricting vehicles and not access to roads. It seems like the scarce resource is efficient road access, not space for cars (even in sg, where there's not a whole lot of that either).

[darklajid]

Are you aware of the SG ERP [1] system?

It's a toll system, that taxes you for driving on key roads during rush hours. Say electronic "Drive on this road before 9.30 and you'll be taxed 2.5 dollar" signs. That feels like a decent idea to me?

1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Road_Pricing

[nopzor]

It's a great system. The swiftness with which the singapore government installed electronic sensors _in every single car in singapore_ was also breathtaking. Bloomberg tried to do an ERP in NYC when he was mayor, but he couldn't get it through. I wish he had!

[tixocloud]

I proposed this in a business class once where our task was to solve Toronto's congestion problem. I cited many numerous instances where this has worked in many cities with far greater population density and car usage than Toronto - I received a poor grade and was told my idea of taxing the roads are stupid.

[piaste]

I'm guessing that adding one extra check to the bureaucratic process of registering a car is way, way cheaper than enforcing road access to a metropolis.

[microcolonel]

Idunno, just have ingress and egress scanners around the hot zones. ingress detected -> start accounting for higher rate, egress detected -> start accounting for lower rate.

Driving a vehicle outside the legal parameters (i.e. without paying the access fee) will carry classic Singaporean sentencing rules.

[bradfa]

Are you suggesting a system like London's congestion charge?

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge

[microcolonel]

Yeah, something similar in implementation. It actually seems like they already have systems like this in place, but they still only charge for access during congestion in specific zones. My suggestion is a bit different in that you would also be charged for non-congestion running time, outside of congestion zones.

[zimpenfish]

Which, sadly, hasn't really done much to combat congestion or pollution. The only real solution is reducing the number of cars - unfortunately never going to happen in London.

[microcolonel]

No, the solution is to increase the charge until congestion is at the desired level. That's the whole point of charging for access: if you are supplying more than you'd like to, charge more until you're supplying just what you want.

If you only want a certain number of cars driving in the city with good reason, then charge the amount which gives you that number.

Perhaps the reason London hasn't set the prices correctly, is that they want maximum revenue instead of a truly limited supply.

[jpatokal]

Which is why Singapore plans to roll out GPS-based road pricing from 2020.

http://roadpricing.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/singapore-will-ha...

[microcolonel]

Seems like they're currently only planning to use it to do the same zone-based congestion pricing that they already do.

It seems like they could do more interesting things with it in the future though. :- )

[bryanlarsen]

The costs of running a vehicle are mostly sunk costs. The capital, license & insurance costs of the car are higher than the marginal costs of gasoline & maintenance. This moves the decision point for vehicle usage to when you buy the car, so loading the costs there too may have some benefit.