Tuesday, June 07, 2005

Pay as you go driving - more tweaks

Living in London, it's just occured to me that I may have to pay a premium for living where I do, even though it is one of the few areas within the M25 that we could afford a house! So here's another tweak to the system - a zone around where you live where you pay a lower rate, allowing you to make those essential journeys like going to the supermarket, doctor, etc.

This system would then allow for rural areas to be charged to non local users at a level that local people could not afford, but they would pay a much lower rate. This would be more important in rural areas than in cities as cars are actually essential in these areas, as public transport is often poor and impractical, e.g. 1 bus a day if that. Charging a higher rate to non local users would also keep people from using rural roads instead of motorways to try and make journeys cheaper.

Another feature which would be immensly practical would be the ability to automatically call out a rescue service at the touch of a button, primarily for the RAC, Green Flag, AA etc. but there could also be another feature for calling the emergency services if you have an accident, and these services would know exactly where you are. This system would not be open to abuse as the caller would be immediately identified (or at least car owner, who should know who's using their car!) and would cut the times of calls to the emergency service dramatically as this information would not be required. The system could use Bluetooth (or similar) to communicate via a mobile phone and initiate the calls for you.