| Comment | The way the charges/fines are set up is very frustrating. Unlike a congestion charge or bus gate, the fines double every time a vehicle enters the zone.
I occasionally need to make deliveries into the city centre. It's not the sort of stuff that's even remotely practical to move on foot, bike, or via public transport. If a trip incurred, say, a £30-60 charge, that would be enough of a disincentive that we would only be venturing in when there was no other option.
The fines max out at something like £380 a time. This leaves us with the option of replacing perfectly serviceable vehicles, or refusing service to city centre customers. We don't make enough from those customers to justify replacing vehicles 2-3yrs earlier that we'd otherwise have planned. Especially coming off the back of Covid/lockdown.
A fixed charge would be enough to discourage regular trips into the zone, but I suspect someone saw a chance to claw in more money from fines. Meanwhile servicing anything in the city centre becomes more and more expensive, with the knock-on effect being that customers will inevitably migrate outside the zone. |
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