Traffic and Parking Management System

TACKLING TRAFFIC IN AUCKLAND

Pricing – A Solution?

The Auckland Road Pricing Evaluation Study (ARPES) has examined the feasibility and desirability of implementing a road pricing scheme to reduce congestion across the wider Auckland region and to raise revenue.

Road pricing has worked wonders in London, reducing traffic in the area marked by around 35%. Even in Stockholm, where a congestion charge has been levied on a trial basis, vehicle traffic reduced by 25% in the first week itself. Thus, internationally this is a proven concept and should work in Auckland too.

Also, Auckland faces a shortfall of funding for its transport plans. According to the JOG report, to complete all the infrastructure projects over the next ten years, a total of $9.4 billion funding will be required. However, only $4.2 billion can be accounted for by current transport funding sources, leading to a shortfall of $5.2 billion. This shortfall can be met with substantially through road pricing.

Based on the five options given to pricing we believe that a combination of Single Cordon and Area will be the ideal solution. There are tried and tested technology solutions which can enable these models.

The proposal for using transponder technology as a means of implementing congestion charging, though most easy to use also has its drawbacks as only a minority of the population would invest in transponders, thereby leading to congestion at the toll booths. Hence, it would only lead to partial decongestion and as a technology has yet to see complete success as has been in the case of other technologies.

Secondary Benefits

Road pricing has been mooted as a solution for congestion. Though this would be the primary benefit derived, there are a number of secondary benefits of this proposal such as Environmental benefits, reduction in accidents, etc. Besides these, there are certain other secondary benefits which have not been accounted for in the ARPES. The noteworthy amongst these have been mentioned as under.

1. Enforcement: Road pricing schemes require usage of some amount of surveillance. Since the hardware and processes will already be in place, it will be easy to use this infrastructure for security and enforcement purposes. Applications can be put in place to detect stolen vehicles and for Smart Vehicle Insurance policies, etc.
2. Parking Management systems: Intelligent parking management systems can be put in place for both free and paid parking zones to enable smooth traffic flows and hence reduce traffic congestion.
3. Traffic Management Systems: Intelligent traffic management systems can be used for smooth flow of traffic. Multiple channels can be put in place to inform commuters about traffic movements, congested areas, accident spots, etc. increasing efficiencies, improving road safety and reducing travelling time and costs. Similar systems are in place in Kuala Lumpur and in the Greater Toronto Area in Canada.
4. Traffic Data & Analysis Systems: A large amount of data collected through the road pricing scheme could be further used to analyze traffic patterns which could then be used for further planning.

Hence, pricing as a concept is both desirable and feasible in Auckland. However, there is a distinct need for a holistic solution and not just one that consists of congestion charging.

Holistic Solution to Congestion

Though road pricing seems to be the answer to Auckland's congestion problems at first look, a deeper study of Auckland's problems reveals a different picture. Road pricing is not a stand-alone solution. For road pricing to work, an excellent public transport system needs to be in place.

Key issues faced in Auckland are:

• Low levels and quality of public transport facilities
• High cost of public transport vis-à-vis private travel

In London and also in Stockholm, these issues did not exist. In fact, both cost and quality of public transport facilities in these areas are extremely commuter friendly and this has been amongst the chief causes for the success of the pricing schemes in both these cities.

The situation in Auckland though is different. Aucklanders only use public transport for about 7 per cent of all trips during peak hours. In fact at the last published census Auckland had one of the lowest per capita use rates of public transport in the world. This is because until recently, there was very little investment in public transport, with a consequent decline in the use of public transport.

Though the government is now dealing with this problem, there is still more to be done. As of now, the entire focus seems to be on growth and increasing roadways. However, one can achieve optimized usage of existing infrastructure. A simple example is that of synchronizing all modes of public transport services viz. bus and train all over Auckland, as is done in New York and San Francisco.

In San Francisco a number of passes such as CityPass or BART pass are available. These passes are like debit or prepaid cards. At first, you purchase a certain amount and each time you use it, credit is subtracted. Just keep your pass with you at all times and you should have no problem finding transportation when you need it. These passes can be bought at any station through automatic ticket machines and can also be purchased online. Downloads are available using which you can plan trips and schedules anywhere, check departure times and be informed of delays, bike blackouts, etc.

Such a solution if implemented in Auckland would positively impact the public and make travelling by public transport easier and more convenient. Besides optimization, a number of other measures need to be undertaken in tandem with road pricing. Some of these are:

• Reducing public transport charges so that it becomes cheaper to use these services across any distance rather than by a private car.
• Introduce free parking zones at the borders of the charging zone. This would encourage people to use public transport, thus reducing congestion in the affected zone.

Mastek – Innovators in Solution Helping the city of London in decongesting its roads

The London Congestion Charging system helps Transport for London to impose a congestion charge of £5 per day on the vehicles entering Central London during 7.00 AM and 6.30 PM on all the working days. (For Details refer website www.cclondon.com) The system offers various channels like Internet, call centre, postal applications, IVR, SMS, and retail outlets for paying the congestion charge. The cameras placed throughout the charging zone capture the images of the vehicle number plates, which act as an evidence to raise a penalty note against the vehicle owners who travelled in the zone without paying a charge for the day. Some customers like residents, disabled, and health services organizations can apply for a discount or exemption from the congestion charge. The system offers special features to the fleet customers (organizations with more than 25 vehicles, like transporters, cabs, etc.) who can make payments based on the usage and direct-debit accounts. The system also provides other operational services to the users for resolving complaints, raising enquiries, cancellation of charges, and fast track registration.

Mastek Engagement

Mastek's strategic partner in UK, Capita was bidding to win the contract to manage the payment and collection systems, designed to raise over £100m a year to upgrade the capital's public transport system. Mastek was made the IT solutions provider to Capita. The payment system would have multi-contact customer service centres, enabling payment through telephone, web and IVR (interactive voice recognition), the back office administration processes and the retail network to enable payments to be made at retail outlets, such as shops, kiosks and petrol stations.

The LCC project is a large-scale, multi-vendor assignment. Mastek played the role of bespoke applications developer and thus had the enterprise wide integration responsibility to integrate all the applications together.

Scale of the assignment

• Roughly 250,000 vehicles make 450,000 movements into the charging zone during the period 7am - 6.30pm.
• Over one million people enter central London by all forms of transport each morning peak, 85% of them by public transport.
• 136,000 residents living within the charging zone, about half of whom are in car-owning households.
• It was a highly complex solution posing the following technical challenges:
• Provision of multiple channels for customer interface such as internet, call centre and white-mail.
• Integration of a number of subsystems such as imaging, document management, enforcement, financial accounting and bespoke application
• Interfacing with outside agency systems such as DVLA and credit card processing companies
• Performance requirements to cater for 250,000 vehicles passing through charging zone resulting in over 800,000 images per day and 100,000 people buying charges every day through various channels
• Prototyping was used to evaluate competing technologies and the leading edge .NET framework was selected.

The programme was an unprecedented success. Not only was it launched on schedule, the user-friendly and intuitive application design found ready acceptance among the user community in London.

At Mastek, we have been working with Governments worldwide to bring about innovative solutions that impact citizens in the best possible way.

Conclusion

The proposal for road pricing in Auckland is a laudable effort by the authorities to reduce congestion. However, pricing cannot be seen as a stand-alone answer. Rather a holistic solution needs to be worked out taking into account all of Auckland's needs - a solution focussing on congestion but also integrating various other existing and new complementary systems.

For this very purpose, Auckland needs the right partner, who is aligned to its vision, who understands Auckland's problems and can provide innovative solutions.