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Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2021-01-07 06:45
Last update date: 2021-01-07 06:45
The Transport Panel of the Legislative Council discussed the "No-Stop Tolling" payment system plan on Tuesday (5th). It is tentatively that the first phase will be implemented in the Lion Rock Tunnel, Shing Mun Tunnel and Tsing Sha Control Area. In March 2008, the "No-Parking Payment System Bill" was proposed to amend relevant laws.
The introduction of advanced technology and simple toll collection procedures are certainly commendable, but on top of this, the government should also explore how to distribute transportation expenditures more equitably.
In the 2018 Policy Address, the government proposed the principles of "congestion levy" and "efficiency priority", trying to achieve the goal of more effective allocation of road space by increasing or reducing the toll levels of toll roads and tunnels used by various vehicles.
These charging concepts are different from the previous principle of "cost recovery". In spirit, they can be said to be a fairer "user pays", because public roads used by more people will inevitably require more public money for maintenance, and vehicles will carry The higher the number of passengers, the lower the load on the road used by each passenger.
Reluctantly, in the past, the government's consideration of road charges was too focused on recovering construction and operating costs. It has only been in recent years that officials slowly woke up and slowly introduced measures such as exempting franchised bus fees.
However, as public roads are public facilities that facilitate citizens to travel, the government should not have forced the public to recover its costs. A group of officials really have an afterthought.
Even with this "no-stop toll collection" system, we can see that the government's plan seems to have failed to fully implement the two principles proposed by itself. For example, the use of road space by private cars is obviously lower than that of mass transportation, but the current plan But first, the three tunnels and road sections in the first phase are to be charged uniformly and cheaply.
This approach may make the toll collection process simple and convenient, but it has not been able to reduce the public’s desire to use private cars and will not help solve the problem of traffic congestion; secondly, it will also allow trucks and buses to occupy and consume more roads. A class of large vehicles receive a discount.
Technology allows dynamic charging
Looking back at the radio frequency identification technology (RFID) and automatic license plate recognition technology used in the payment system, they connect to the "toll payment" previously called "in-car sensor" to allow the designated payment account to deduct tunnel and highway tolls, so the entire The system can fully adjust the toll level dynamically according to other arrangements, such as increasing or reducing the toll according to the current traffic flow level to ease the traffic flow in busy locations.
The dynamic charging of private cars is especially worthy of the government's more thoughts.
The user pays is a good principle, but when society is disparity between the rich and the poor, and the same amount of fees has different impacts on the rich and the grassroots, the government can consider whether to introduce the concept of "the able pay more". One of the methods can be short car age For luxury brand private cars, you have to pay more than ordinary brands.
The age of the car and the car brand are not related to privacy. It is believed that listing on the payment label is not controversial. As long as the detection technology is adjusted accordingly, the affected stakeholders are definitely not willing to accept additional charges. This requires the government and the private sector. The car industry and users have reached a consensus.
Even the trial of electronic road pricing, the Hong Kong government has to see until now, when will the vision of "smart travel" be realized in Hong Kong?
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Of course, after all, the government cannot just rely on "buying road money" to reduce the use of private cars to reduce road congestion, nor should it expect people who are used to using private cars to easily transfer to buses or MTR.
The use of these collective transportation vehicles has also approached saturation, and their functions cannot completely replace private cars.
Therefore, the government has to work harder on other transportation policies, such as establishing a regulated ride-hailing system, issuing more taxi licenses and improving the service quality of drivers, and increasing pick-up and drop-off services for the infirm in order to attract more people. Use other means of travel for private cars.
Toll payment for tunnels and highways should be implemented early
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Electronic Road Tolling, Transport Department, CHT Tsing Ma Bridge, Public Transport 01 Viewpoint
