This overhead is relative to doing nothing, or relative to imposing tolls?
Does not the congestion pricing setup in N.Y. rely on license plate cameras?
Under the lottery model, the same cameras are used. When a license is scanned which is permitted on that day, no further tracking is required. The event contributes to statistics, but otherwise can be dropped.
When a license is scanned which is not permitted that day, it added to a local database with a count of 1, or else has its count incremented if already recorded. Further processing deeper in the system is only applied to licenses which are over a threshold. The counts are periodically aged down, and records which hit zero are deleted.
I'm talking more of the overhead for every single person who might want to come into the city on a given day — they will need to check and work their schedules around 1) being sure to check the current permitted/denied license plate character pattern and 2) work their schedules around that.
As we've already seen, we already need substantial work-arounds for critical can't move medical appointments. Events can be even worse; working in a business displaying at the biggest trade show for their industry all year, they've got to come in all four days, using their personal cars. Oops, nope, banned two of those days... etc. It is bullshit. Whereas with congestion tolls, it's just a trivial expense part of doing the show. We can think of thousands of such examples where a toll is simply a trivial inconvenience whereas a traffic violation is not. Of course, for each one, we can find a work-around ("just add another layer of indirection...."). And each one of those work-arounds adds to the workload of everyone who might come into the zone.
In contrast, the congestion toll workload is always simple: "Is it worth the extra $X to go in during the busy time, or can I go in a different time?"
And, traffic violations — especially accumulating traffic violations — are a LOT worse for low-income people, as the consequences tend to compound.
You are definitely convincing me even more strongly that congestion tolls are the better idea and lotteries are both far more inconvenient and more unfair.
I think that if the license plate appears as a URL parameter, you could just save a browser bookmark. Click on it, and there is your schedule for the next umpteen months.
Ideally, they wouldn't change it more than, say, nine months out. I.e it is set in stone for three quarters of a year. A month is added each month. No "tuning" anything closer than 9 months.
> we already need substantial work-arounds for critical can't move medical appointments.
Trivial workaround of free passes associated with counters tied to license plates, together with the stability of the schedule being set in stone for months into the future.
> And, traffic violations — especially accumulating traffic violations — are a LOT worse for low-income people, as the consequences tend to compound.
What's the difference? Low-income people will just drive past the cameras and get a shocking bill in the mail. Isn't that how it works?
It's not a "violation" because you called it a "toll": word semantics.
I think, go easy on the violations under the lottery system. E.g. send a warning to first time abusers and whatnot.
>>Ideally, they wouldn't change it more than, say, nine months out
So, the system is highly unresponsive compared to adjusting a toll +/- a small amount for changing conditions
The system is also completely unresponsive to time-of-day issues, so e.g., if they want to dampen traffic in 11:30-15:30...
>> free passes associated with counters tied to license plates
Right, another entire kludge system to attempt to accommodate a weakness, and then it only works for one-offs. Nevermind the week-long events that often bring people into the city, which now need yet another work-around...
>>traffic violations ...What's the difference?
The difference is a bill for a $9 toll vs a $150 violation for driving in the congestion zone on a forbidden day.
Yes, a toll is different from a violation. OFC, if you fail to pay the toll, it can turn into a violation, but that is NOT the same thing
>>go easy
Right, which reduces the effectiveness of the entire system because the abusers will game it even more to take advantage while the poor people will get hammered even more.
I love technology, but I also know that adding ever more complex tech to "solve" a problem is often a bad solution. In this case, it will literally not even help the poor people, and will help significantly the people with two cars.
If you want to work better for low-income people, just scale the congestion tolls to the value of the cars; those are already only one lookup away from the license plates. E.g., the basic toll is $9, but for cars over $100K value, it scales proportionally.
Now you aren't handing out traffic ticket violations to people who must come in on the 'wrong' day.
> I love technology, but I also know that adding ever more complex tech
Says the person who wants to adjust prices by the hour in response to real-time data, LOL.
Why would we care about fine tuning by the hour, when we can just make 75% of the cars disappear, all day long.
I would apply the ban 24 hours a day. If your car is not allowed tomorrow and you don't want to use a free pass, and you must absolutely drive, then get there before midnight tonight and sleep in your car.
Umm, the simplest tech to actually do the job. I wasn't talking about adjusting prices by the hour, more like by the week or month, but as you point out, with a toll system, it would be straightforward to do real-time updates. So, zoom out a bit.
The point is to use the simplest practical system that does the job, in this case managing traffic congestion.
With no system, the costs of making extra traffic are externalized from each driver onto every other driver and city resident.
A congestion toll puts back on every driver coming into the zone a small fraction of those externalized costs. The toll costs are small, typically a fraction of what it would cost to even park for any time in the zone, or buy fuel. This system allows EACH INDIVIDUAL to freely, for themselves, decide if it is worthwhile to bear that fractional cost. And the system is paid for largely by the drivers making the congestion.
In contrast, a lottery system is a government agency controlling everything with an extremely blunt instrument (or, if it is tunable, a blunt instrument with a kludged-on rat's nest of spaghetti-code to handle every fairness exception).
The entire burden is on the city and the NON-driving residents to foot the cost of implementing it. It costs the drivers massive inconvenience (as discussed earlier), gives a free pass to multi-car households, and people who need to come in on "off" days are penalized with moving traffic violations, which have a much higher cost, especially for low-income people.
Lotteries are even worse for your dude wanting to drive in and sleep in his car to avoid the 24hr ban; with a lottery, he still cannot drive anywhere the entire next 24hr day, but to avoid the toll, he needs only come in before the congestion time and park until the congestion time ends.
Seriously, this discussion has clarified that a lottery is worse in every way, for the drivers, including the low-income drivers, overhead for the city and it's residents, and for the system itself which will work much less well.
Does not the congestion pricing setup in N.Y. rely on license plate cameras?
Under the lottery model, the same cameras are used. When a license is scanned which is permitted on that day, no further tracking is required. The event contributes to statistics, but otherwise can be dropped.
When a license is scanned which is not permitted that day, it added to a local database with a count of 1, or else has its count incremented if already recorded. Further processing deeper in the system is only applied to licenses which are over a threshold. The counts are periodically aged down, and records which hit zero are deleted.