I live between the inner and outer congestion zone so the value of my house is fairly likely to dip in the short-term, even more so than during this current global economic bellyache!

And I would have appreciated knowing the real price of the congestion charge to the Manchester rate payers.

Let’s see…

12 Congestion Charge Capital Costs

Manchester will probably need to:

1. Install number plate recognition technology on all roads it’s identified as “to be monitored”
2. Install a vast array of signs to let drivers know when they’ll enter the charging zone (inner and outer), same for leaving
3. Purchase the software required to run congestion charging
4. Block off detours motorists might take and add new signs there
5. Build a centre to organise payment of the congestion charge
6. Build a centre (or use the payments centre) to follow up late payments
7. Purchase and set-up computer facilities to run congestion charge applications (possibly including lottery-like terminals for payment)
8. Introduce web based payment methods, along with a new web site
9. Recruit staff to man the congestion charge payment and follow-up centre(s) (including ads, interviews and recruitment firms)
10. Recruit IT staff to run the congestion charge systems ((including ads, interviews and recruitment firms))
11. Introduce camera cars that can buzz around the city centre checking number plates for those cars who got through an unidentified rat run so they can be checked against car number plates coming into Manchester
12. Training shopkeepers to help customers pay for congestion charging

How much do you think that lot will cost? And is that coming out of the money for transport?

12 Ongoing Congestion Charge Costs

So, now we’ve worked out that simply getting Manchester ready to start running a congestion charge is not exactly free, lets look at the running costs…

1. Cost of locating, following up and taking non-payers to court
2. Maintaining the signage and cameras
3. Maintaining the congestion charge payment and follow-up centre (Policing Unit)
4. Maintaining the software applications
5. Rent or lease of the building housing staff
6. Paying and managing the staff
7. Paying for and managing the computer facilities
8. Continuing recruitment costs as people leave
9. Paying for running expenses of camera cars
10. Continual training of congestion charge sellers
11. Payment of congestion charge sellers
12. Interest payments on loans to fund the capital not paid for by the government grant

Who Pays For the Town Hall and Public Servants?

My next thought is this.

Manchester Town Hall is right slap bang in the middle of the congestion charging zone. Does that mean that all the town hall staff will pay for the congestion charge? Or will the Town Hall staff decide to open later in the day, after 9:30am and close later? Or maybe some of their staff or the councillors will be exempt?

Where Does The Congestion Charge Policing Unit Go?

Where in Manchester will the congestion charge building be located? In the inner zone, between inner and outer zone, or outside the M60? If inside any zone the Congestion charge is actually increasing its revenues at the expense of its new staff.

And The Bottom Line?

Who is going to pay for all this? Manchester rate payers, of course.

However, if the council expects to pay running costs based on the charges what happens if the congestion charge works so well hardly anyone enters inner or outer zone until after 9:30am or leaves until after the afternoon time? Doesn’t that mean that it’s worked but the infrastructure is now a costly white elephant?

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Are we being duped?

You may remember when London was about to get the congestion charge there were a large number of road works around the capital that seemed to make the congestion much, much worse.

Interestingly in Manchester a number of the major routes into the city centre from North and West Manchester seem to have road works on that act to produce heavy traffic at the busiest times of the day.

Could this be a coincidence? I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

What About The Con Charge Adverts?

If you look at all the adverts that are plastered everywhere they show ordinary people who don’t have a problem with the congestion charge. Of course the adverts make clear that the reason they don’t have a problem is that “they’re all right Jack” because they don’t drive into Manchester anyway.

Apparently the agency that constructed the adverts made sure the people weren’t smiling so that the message wouldn’t be seen that way. Check out what Mark Simpson found out about the adverts.

Well, like Mark I took the adverts to show smug people who are OK with the charge, because they wouldn’t be paying it! What about the people who wont earn enough? Do they go back on the dole?

Or maybe city centre office and shop employees wont start until after the new rush hour that will now start at 9:30? Does that mean that the congestion charge time would need extending to 10:30am then?

Mark makes a very good point in his first post on the charge about all the rat runs and the fact they’re not policed. If they’re not blocked off traffic will simply hive off down them to avoid the charge. If they are blocked the occasional motorist who uses them will be thwarted and have to join the main throng of traffic and make the traffic even worse.

What About Non-Manchester Commuters?

What happens to people who come to do some work in Manchester on an irregular basis, maybe weekly or every few days? People from Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Bolton, Rochdale, Stockport - you can easily name other close-by towns.

They add to the flow of traffic, but they also increase the amount of commerce coming into Manchester. Do we want to slow that down too? Maybe the intention is to completely put them off? That will certainly help the planned reduction in traffic. What’s the impact on the local economy?

Tomorrow I’ll be asking a few more questions about the ongoing cost of the congestion charge.

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I was minding my own business on the M60 car park the other day when I noticed a tiny car zip by in the middle lane. The thing that caught my attention was that it had a large pole stuck vertically up on the roof to which were attached what looked like 4 cameras.

Then another few days later I saw a similar car driving through Blackley.

I noticed one of these same types of cars in London earlier this year when I was with a client. He explained that the cars had been used by Google to take images of every corner of London so they could create a virtual London anyone could “walk” through. The cars had then been taken by Ken Livingston (then Mayor of London) to help him with policing of the congestion charge and/or parking.

So it looks as though we’ll be able to walk through a virtual Manchester in due course.  Will the little cars be used to police the congestion charge I wonder?

It does all seem to be very Big Brother. Maybe George Orwell’s vision didn’t arrive in 1984. Maybe he was 24 years late in his prediction?

And then to cap it all I got caught by a mobile speed camera operating from one of those anonymous looking white vans!

A virtual Manchester is going to really help anyone looking for a house as they’ll be able to wander around the neighbourhood and see the shops, the schools and all the houses.

The only downside maybe Greater Manchester will adopt the cars for enforcement of everything - litter, jay walking, speeding, incorrect parking, congestion charging .

Is the next step to equip everyone with a pair of glasses with cameras on them to record everything you do to see if you break the law? Interesting times…

Table of contents for Manchester Congestion Charging - Reprinted from Good Company

1. The Congestion Charge Business Effect
2. The New Gold Rush - In Manchester
3. Manchester's Congestion Charge Effect

The London Chamber of Commerce published its third Retail Survey on the Impact of Congestion Charging in January 2005 to give a view of how business was affected.

Two previous surveys found:

• 79% of central London’s retailers experienced a drop in takings
• 56% a reduction in customers
• 42% thought congestion charging should take all, or most of the blame
• 74.5% of restaurants responding reported a fall in takings
• Same restaurants noted a 78.3% fall in customer numbers since the change was introduced
• 54% of those restaurants attributed both drops to the congestion charge

In the short term Manchester’s bustling restaurant trade is unlikely to be affected as it’s perfectly possible to go into Manchester anytime after the 9:30am charging period and have lunch, or dinner ensuring you leave before or after the evening charging period.

Similarly the retail side is unlikely to be affected in the short-term.

The Road Haulage Association suggested that lorries be excluded from the scheme, due to cost and more red tape. The London congestion scheme includes lorries and it seems likely that Manchester will do the same. So any goods going into the city centre need to be there before the charging period begins or after it ends.

Manchester’s Satellite Towns Business Opportunity

The biggest impact will be on Manchester city centre employees who need to travel in or out during one, or more, of the charging periods.

Say on average someone works 45 weeks per year and they have to commute in and out across both rings during rush hour. That costs them £1,125 per year.

Unless employees are compensated for having to pay the charge they’re likely to be looking for jobs where they only cross the Outer ring or don’t cross either ring to get to work.

The net result is an outflow of good employees to jobs outside the charging area. That gives businesses in the North of Manchester an opportunity to get hold of some good and well-trained staff.

Forward thinking businesses based in the centre who recognise the likely outflow can make themselves more attractive to employees by either footing their congestion charging bill, or creating other offices outside the charging boundary.

Towns close to Manchester can build, or extend, business parks to capitalise on this outflow of employees.

Property Price Rises Likely

The cost of property inside the rings is likely to rise as it becomes more attractive to live there if your work means you must commute into Manchester. Even those who currently live in the South could easily use the M60 to get to new offices off the M60 in the North.

The New Greater Manchester Gold Rush

An exodus of businesses from the city centre will bring more competition for office and warehouse space in the towns outside the M60 ring. Which means more office and warehouse building along the M60. Builders, estate agents, lenders, solicitors and investors have the ability to grab some nuggets for development, re-development or simply as investment.

Both private and commercial property developers are going to benefit from these increases in price if they are astute enough to buy property near the predicted hotspots.

Businesses that are currently in place in the satellite towns with locked in deals for their mortgage or rent and rates are sitting pretty in such a scenario and will be able to more easily compete on price with their city centre counterparts and in fact even increase their prices as their city competitors are almost bound to as the pressure on employee wages increases.

It seems unlikely that more private homes need to be built to cater for the businesses moving to outside the outer ring. However, homes near to convenient Metrolink stops and good bus routes are going to increase in value.

More money coming into the area attracts services such as restaurants, shops, hotels and leisure facilities.

Astute businesses have the opportunity to get the gold from this apparent problem. Are you one of them?

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Table of contents for Manchester Congestion Charging - Reprinted from Good Company

1. The Congestion Charge Business Effect
2. The New Gold Rush - In Manchester
3. Manchester's Congestion Charge Effect

The worst case is that Manchester’s councils and their consultants predict a range of goals that congestion charging will achieve. Goals that even their most optimistic dreams would never achieve.

How do I know that?

Look at a report by Transport for London, the body that runs London’s congestion charging scheme. It notes that six out of 13 traffic targets set for 2010 will not be met, including:

· reduced congestion (congestion will actually increase by 8%)

· meeting air quality targets (increased diesel pollutants)

· reducing greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide emissions will increase)

· improving bus reliability

· reduce numbers of people seriously injured or killed (likely to be met)

· encourage more people to use public transport (likely to be met)

However, as Lynne Featherstone, chairwoman of the London Assembly’s transport committee, says:

“We won’t be able to bring down the levels of congestion in the suburbs the only thing we can do is improve bus services. Since I came into power there were four million bus journeys a day now there are six million.”

More people are using public transport in London but that increases the numbers of bus and taxi journeys and with it diesel pollutants. London Underground appears to be even more heavily overloaded than before the London scheme came into force.

A significant increase in congestion and pollution in the London suburbs around the congestion-charging scheme zone has been noted.

Manchester’s approach seems likely to have the following effect:

• spread traffic over the day as no charge is applied outside the peak times
• People able to change their start and finish times can avoid the charge by staggering the times going to and leaving work or going shopping
• Aiming to reduce congestion by rewarding, or at least not punishing, those who drive at non-peak times
• People in the city centre retail areas Who must be in ready for customers and who are on low wages will be affected by the charge
• Anyone who must be in the office or drop children off at school or at childminders during the peak times is still affected.

London - Manchester Difference

(This is the second post adapted from an article I wrote printed in the “Good Company” Northwest Business Newspaper.)

The huge difference between Manchester and London is London’s vastly superior transport infrastructure.

London’s Infrastructure

London has:

• the Underground, available over a wide area of London and beyond
• Central train stations (King’s Cross, St Pancreas, Paddington and Euston servicing a vast swathe of the area around London with commuter trains
• London’s bus network has been augmented to offer even more spaces for passengers
• The vast number of black cabs available

Manchester’s Infrastructure

Manchester has:

• Good bus services for popular routes like Bury to Manchester (X59) and similar services from towns outside the centre
• Elsewhere bus journeys involve several changes to reach a destination, which has the effect of increasing a journey time enormously
• The Metrolink, currently only provides links to a very few towns, increasing a little with the Big Bang to Oldham and Rochadale
• Victoria, Oxford Road and Piccadilly train stations provide commuter trains for areas outside Manchester

Compared to the London Underground the train stations and Metrolink services a tiny number of commuters each day.

Congestion Charge Versus Public Transport

In the end the congestion charge’s ability to make any impression on Manchester’s predicted traffic congestion hinges on two things:

1) The price of the public transport option versus driving a car and paying the charge

2) The perceived availability and convenience of public transport
Probably the worst bit of news for congestion charging is that bus and Metrolink ticket prices are so high that it comes down to whether you’re willing to pay for the convenience of using a car. Which let’s face it everyone does because we’re still buying huge amounts of petrol despite the prices.

In the next post about congestion charging I’ll explain how London business was affected by congestion charging and what might happen in Manchester.

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Table of contents for Manchester Congestion Charging - Reprinted from Good Company

1. The Congestion Charge Business Effect
2. The New Gold Rush - In Manchester
3. Manchester's Congestion Charge Effect

Manchester’s congestion charging is coming whether people want it or not. And yet apart from funding the Metrolink expansion it has the potential to trigger a new gold rush!

Eight of Greater Manchester’s councils voted to move forward with congestion charging for Manchester by agreeing to go for money from the government’s Transport Innovation Fund. Trafford and Stockport voted against the bid.

With the funding the government wants 31 public transport improvements. Including the tram link to Manchester airport, more buses and train carriages.

It’s expected the congestion charge will be imposed towards the end of 2012 when all transport improvements are complete.

What Manchester Congestion Charging Means

A recent survey released on the 23^rd July 2007 by the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce looks at congestion charging in relation to business.

Survey question #3 asked people to rate themselves on a scale of 1 to 6 on their “knowledge and awareness of the Transport Innovation Fund and congestion charging proposals.”

Of the 643 members answering question #3 59% rated themselves as a 3 or less and 12% had “no knowledge.”

Congestion Charge Details:

• The congestion charge targets the main routes into and out of Manchester.
• Two rings of sensors will be set around the city to monitor the vehicles entering during the morning rush “hour” (7am to 9:30am), or leaving during the evening peak (4pm to 6:30pm).
• The Outer ring of sensors roughly follows the line of the M60 and the Intermediate ring circles the city centre.
• The planned congestion charging area is 12 times larger than London’s original area.
• An onboard electronic tag in your car registers when you pass a sensor. Cameras using number plate recognition capture details of cars without tags so they can be fined.
• Inbound peak traffic pays £1 for crossing the outer ring and a further £2 to cross the intermediate ring.
• Outbound peak traffic pays £1 for each ring they cross going home.

If the London congestion charging model is used once you’ve passed a circle you can pass that same circle (in the same direction) more than once in a day without further charge. So nobody will pay more than £5 per day.

As I’ve said previously on this blog, people are writing about congestion charging as though it’s inevitable. And yet research reveals that people still plan to continue using their cars to get into work in town.

David Cameron’s ludicrous attempt to “go green” by charging for using supermarket car parks is quite simply a tax on the poor. Because you can bet your life that people with money in their pocket wont bother about a little penalty for going shopping. Whereas the poor may well be deterred from taking their car and getting a fortnight’s worth of shopping for the freezer and instead make lots of little trips to the supermarket instead. And worse drive there and drop someone off to do the shopping and keep their engine running so they can move if they get noticed by those appointed to oversee parking. How does that help the environment then Mr. Cameron?

In the next post about congestion charging I’ll explain what London expected to gain from congestion charging and what happened there. And how the findings affect Manchester.

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Manchester Education are currently still processing a mountain of school bus pass applications.

How do I know?

My son’s application is currently somewhere in the mountain and I’ve just rung up a helpful lady at Manchester education to ask. The lady said they dealt with thousands of applications because everyone has to reapply each year!!

I hate to think of the manpower they require to process everyone who requires a bus pass, both within the Manchester area and outside (like Bury).

I asked why they didn’t either:

• Provide a bus pass valid from the time the child enters school in year 7 to their final year
• Don’t bother with a pass and let all school children have free transport on school days and at school times

I was told they had to issue bus passes each year because people move house all the time. That means the children could move nearer to their school and no longer be eligible for free travel.

Like I said before think of the vast amount of time and energy the education staff expend dealing with all this.

And the phone calls the education department must deal with as parents wonder where their offspring’s bus passes are.

Bus Pass Application Costs

The costs of dealing with the applications just mount up.

These are just a few of the costs I’d expect are being clocked up in the whole procedure:

• Cost of designing the form
• Cost of creating web pages to include the form
• Cost of bandwidth for downloading the form
• Cost of getting the form printed
• Cost of sending the form to schools across Manchester
• Cost of handling the post as the forms are sent back
• Cost of handling forms of those who drop them off at the School Travel unit
• Cost of creating a bus pass so that it’s forgery-proof
• Cost of handling phone calls asking about filling in the forms
• Cost of checking each application’s address on the Internet against the school to check eligibility
• Cost of checking each photograph
• Cost of entering the details on the bus pass and sticking the photograph on
• Cost of sending the schools, or parents, the bus passes
• Cost of school secretary’s handing out bus passes
• Cost of handling phone calls from parents asking where the bus pass is

Obviously some of these costs could be eliminated by refusing to answer phone calls!

How Can We Reduce Costs Reasonably?

It strikes me that the best thing to do would be to scrap bus passes and give all pupils the freedom to travel to and from school for free.

That means the education staff and school secretaries would eliminate a huge amount of work for all the pupils that travel free currently whilst giving pupils that don’t travel free the ability to go by public transport.

Allowing children free access to public transport means there will be fewer parents ferrying children to school. Which I understand is one aim of the congestion charging scheme.

So in addition to eliminating a major cost to the council scrapping the bus pass also means there’ll be less cars on the road at school start and finish times. So helping the environment and cutting congestion!

Of course the downside is that pupils that currently don’t get free travel and who make their own way to school would get free travel. However, if many of them are within walking distance of school there’s unlikely to be many waiting around for a bus to take them.

What do you think?

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