By Peter Cochrane, 12 June 2007 09:27
COMMENT
Written at Chicago O'Hare during an unscheduled stopover with a storm on the horizon. Dispatched via free wi-fi in case I'm really in Hotel California - I seem to be able to get in here but sometimes wonder if I will ever get out
The UK has seen no significant road investment programme for more than 25 years and now has the highest traffic densities in the EU complemented by some of the poorest road maintenance standards.
Traffic jams are the norm, with the time and energy wasted exceeding the combined national education and heath budgets. And then of course there is the resulting CO2 pollution created by slow moving vehicles - which is at least double what would be if there were no jams!
Augment all of this with high taxes on road usage and fuel, and punitive parking and traffic violation fees, and I'm sure you get the picture. The GDP suffers and motorists seem to be locked into some kind of civil war with government.
Unfortunately all efforts to sort out public transport have seen no significant improvements and in many areas the situation is critical, especially in London where it seems to me the congestion charge has failed to improve traffic flows.
So what is the next big transport plan? Road pricing of up to $3 per mile at peak times - yes $3 per mile per car! Makes your eyes water doesn't it? And how will this be implemented? GPS (global positioning system) technology will be installed in every licensed vehicle, with each motorist having to pay $400 to $500 per vehicle for the pleasure.
Will such a scheme fly? Well, the technology has been tested and it looks feasible, and dates for a grand rollout are being tabled. So it looks reasonably likely it will happen. But will it succeed?
I think we can look forward to some interesting reactions to this technology and the attempt to charge by the mile. The military has already expressed worries about GSM Jamming and commercial jammers are available.
Of course the technically capable can easily create a jammer from low cost components.
So here is my prediction: drivers will invest in jammers and kill the GPS signal across large swathes of the country.
Government reaction will be to try to apprehend these people and prosecute them in the courts. But my guess is it will very quickly get out of hand and drivers will get downright devious.
They certainly have the motive. If you drive 1,000 miles per month, which is not unusually high in the UK, you will pay around $3,000 per month in road charges. But jammers can be constructed for less than $50.
So I could attach a jammer to my car and run the risk of detection and prosecution. Alternatively it would be far less risky, and still very cost effective to attach 10 or 15 jammers per month to other people's cars and trucks with magnets.
How many people would have to do this to cripple the entire national road pricing system? I reckon a mere 100 or so out of the 20 million car owners in the UK will do the trick.
It might go like this: month one of road charging sees around 1,500 jammers deployed, month two sees the figure rise to 3,000 and month three to 4,500. Then batteries will start to run down and the number will start to stabilise. But at the same time as the number of jammers deployed accelerates, the costs will fall and the numbers will continue to rise again. My guess is we would see a car fleet fully saturated with jammers in much less than a year.
At the same time the authorities will start tracking down the victims and run an appeal for everyone to check their car for jammers.
Hmm, I can't see that working! Wouldn't drivers rather feign ignorance, leave jammers in place and save a lot of money on charges?
So, are there 100 people in the population inclined to start such a GPS rebellion? My guess is it is more likely to be thousands and not hundreds! When CB radio was banned thousands bought units and the law had to be changed. The same was true of the iPod TravelMate FM transmitter for cars. People just did what appealed to them and government lost control. Seems to me GPS road charging will be an even more attractive victim.
To my mind the real downside to all this will be the loss of GPS maps. Many of us now see GPS as a vital part of our driving experience. To lose it this way would be a real shame but then again paper maps are real cheap.
Comments
There are 44 comments. Join the discussion
1. anonymous
Apparently, one of the main reasons for the GPS road pricing scheme is that the UK government is forced to find a use for the EU Gallileo GPS system. If the jammers just jam the Gallileo GPS then all will be OK - we will just happily continue to use our sat navs with the existing US GPS system. Problem solved!
2. Karen Challinor
why Peter Cochrane you little rebel you
you've just put the biggest smile on my face
I'd like to shake your hand if we ever meet, that was brave, the british government is not the most forgiving of institutions
3. Rick Eastwood
If this pans out anything like you suggest you'll be hunted down by the Brown gestapo and be thrown in jail for inciting civil rebellion. You're the 1st to write it down that I've seen so it'll all be pinned on you, Peter.
Brave man and nice knowing you.
Where's the nearest UK gulag I wonder?
Ta
R
4. Simon Allen
I think one of the reasons there was such a strong backlash against the pricing idea was that, the govt said nothing about what would happen to the current road tax and petrol taxes. If BOTH of those were dropped, to be replaced per-mile-charging, then the figures would look hughely different.
That said, I think that your prognostication will turn out to be (as always!) prescient.
5. anonymous
Peter, we already have charging per mile, although averaged across geography and time - it's called fuel duty.
So we have to ask ourselves what more can be gleaned by GPS tracking.
The obvious answer is crime detection. However, this won't happen, because criminals will be the first to disable their GPS units, just as they try to hide all other evidence of their wrongdoing.
The real reason is average speed infringement, or rather the revenue Mr. Brown can get from it. If 'big bro' knows you got from A to B in less time than a constant 70mph allows, you automatically get a brown envelope on your door mat...
6. Mark Hosey
In general GPS signal strength is so low that any sheilding round the antenna will effectively block the signal, a piece of well earthed aluminium foil will do. For those that prefer a more elegant solution personal jammers that plug into the cigarette lighter, operating over a small radius round a car can be constructed for a couple of pounds. They will be very difficult to detect. I'm sure we will see them on sale from various internet outlets very shortly.
If the government is serious about reducing congestion they should seriously consider encouraging companies to use home working schemes and/or relocate their factories and offices to quieter parts of the country. They should put the tax on fuel. Don't get me wrong, I drive a car and I moan like hell every time the price goes up but if it has got to be done I'd prefer the inexpensive low tech solution. Adding the cost to fuel is a tax at source that cannot be avoided and has the added benefit of costing much less to implement
7. Anthony Hunt
The sheer computer power required to track a fleet of 60 vehicles with any level of accuracy is enormous.
To track hundreds of vehicles with even limited detail is difficult.
To track millions of cars is an impossibility.
Look at how ISP's are punitively truncating bandwidth NOW with just a few households downloading music and TV.
Imagine the internet saturated with millions of data packets every second from cars. Digital gridlock!
The whole idea is Gordon Brown's absurd dream and can never be anything more than a white elephant. I've no doubt this hair-brained government will spend millions of our tax pounds on it, before finding out this glaringly obvious fact.
8. Shelia
Unfortunately I think rebellion has now been quashed in the UK.
We grumble about everything government throws at us but still accept it.
Where are the heady days of demonstration against unfair, unjust, undemocratic or simply plain stupid government legislation - would love to see them back but think few people now have the backbone for it.
So come on, prove me wrong!
9. anonymous
Wow, Peter I hope you have a fast plane/boat/car available to escape the governments undoubted army of expensive snoopers who will police this. Seriously though, how costly will putting in a national network of computers be, just to calculate the charges with an undoubtedly complex structure based on time, traffic speeds plus location for every vehicle in the country. Barmy and these guys are supposed to serve the people!!
10. Simon
Of course there is an even simpler method of disabling the system !
it will need power, and that will come from the car electrical system - and it will have to have a fuse in it. We all know that fuses blow ;-)
On the other hand, such portable battery powered jammers do have a certain attractiveness - and provided you are careful to avoid leaving any evidence (buy the bits with cash, don't leave any DNA or fingerprints) then it will be impossible for the authorities to prove who put such a device on a car. If they try their usual "well it's your car, you muct be responsible" then I'm confident we'll see it overturned by Europe. It will be nice to see the courts clogged up with such cases till the government realise they've really scored an own goal.
11. anonymous
"Where are the heady days of demonstration against unfair, unjust, undemocratic or simply plain stupid government legislation?"
Maggie beat it out of us, do you not remember?
12. anonymous
Hurray for you Peter! An elegant and near unstoppable way of frustrating the Blair/Brownite obsession with control and monitoring of the individual! You deserve to be declared a national hero.
Got any similar neat ideas for frustrating the equally ill conceived national ID card? (apart from "accidentally" crushing the little chip inside it?)
Since the track record seems to be that the government is getting better at making road projects occur on time and budget and is cr*p at making almost any IT project work - how about the simple solution of spending all that silly IT budget for road pricing and ID cards on some better roads???
Yes, there are some green freaks who will objects, but they don't seem to mind the standard and style of living that (relative) freedom of movement brings.
13. Bob marley
I like - I hope you - I hope you like jammin, too. I wanna jam it; I wanna jam it.
14. Nick Morgan
Peter,
This is a brilliant idea and I hope that enough people will take the risk to make this work.
As a couple of other people have said, what ever happened to the good old days when citizens would stand up and fight for their rights. We need more civil disobedience to remind Government that we actually live in a democracy and that they are our representatives. They don't exist to implement their hair brained and bigoted views upon the populous as though they were some kind of mad dictators.
What I find most frightening is how Government will increasingly use lies to support their case for a particular course of action, and too many people simply believe them. They brainwash so many people to give in using false information.
So good to see someone fighting back and encouraging people to stand up to Government and demand that for once they act on behalf of the people not themselves.
15. anonymous
Heh. I've been telling the Government this for months, but they won't take the blindest bit of notice. After all, why should they listen to me? I'm only a civil servant specialising in crime and GPS...
16. anonymous
Jamming is a crude method, and a bit obvious if your vehicle does no recorded mileage. Not much more technically difficult is to spoof the systems into thinking you have done just a few miles on low cost routes.
17. Paddy McGinty
It might be even easier, just go to Ireland and buy a car.
No government implant, no road tax.
It would take a bit of time and money to setup an accomodation address in Ireland, but that would more than pay dividends for anyone doing a substantial amount of mileage.
I seem to remember that you need to register foreign vehicles if they have been in the country more than 12-months, but since you don't import the car (just drive it over the border), there are no importation records.
There is nothing to say you are defrauding Gordon, because the car isn't registered in the UK.
I would imagine that paying parking fines and congestion charge would also become 'optional'.
I'm not recommending that anyone should do this, but it would be impossible to prove.
18. anonymous
The Galileo project is currently suffering from a cash flow crisis. UK and Netherlands govt's have opposed public funding to bail out the project.
Road pricing may happen in 2015 at this rate. Fingers crossed!
I am pleased to see someone else promoting GPS jamming.
Just call me '1%' :)
19. Tony Mudd
If people use "spoofing" rather than "jamming" that fools the system into thinking you're only driving a few miles on uncongested roads, (when you really are parked on the M25), then it would affect all the cars you pass on your journey - suddenly, they would be billed lots and probably fined because they've suddenly "jumped" 10 miles and back, as your spoofed signal is received.
20. anonymous
Just stick a lump of lead in the appropriate place on the car
21. Simon
To the Anonymous Forensic Specialist :
Yes, spoofing OR jamming would look suspicious. But the beuty of Peters suggestions is that your OWN car doesn't carry a jammer (that you know about), but along your journey, receptions is so patchy due to jammers on OTHER cars that the system will break down. It simply will be so unreliable that it won't be legally defensible in court (which is where it will end up). Just think of the owrkload for 'someone' trying to piece together your journey from occasional scraps of location data that may not be accurate enough to place you on a specific road - there are plenty of routes where you could be on a high cost route or a parallel low cost route and GPS isn't accurate enough to disciminate, especially when it's can't keep a lock on the signals.
Because you don't apply the jamming yourself, then YOU have committed no offense unless they make it an offense to have one stuck to your car by someone else and about which you know nothing - I don't think even Tony Bliar would try and get that one past the courts !
22. anonymous
Totally uninformed article. The calculation of $3 per mile and 1000 miles a month implying $3000 charge a month is simply, grotesquely incorrect, as Peter Cochrane would know had he actually researched the subject. That $3 figure (GBP1.34) is the MAXIMUM figure from a feasibility study, with a VERY SMALL proportion of traffic paying that. The lowest rate in the study was 2p per mile.
I'm all for debate, but please let's have an informed debate or it's no value at all.
This info from here:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/roadpricing/debate/faq#10a
23. Jeremy Wickins
We're thinking a bit small - this will happen in every European country that introduces GPS road-charging (spying). Domestic courts across Europe, the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights will all end up inundated with applications for wrongful prosecution! It could even end with an EU Regulation banning the idea altogether! Wonderful!!!
24. John Sniadowski
By the time the government actually figures out something that might acually work, and given their problems with collecting personal taxation, one of the following will have happened:
1) Run out of fuel because the Ruskies don't want to share it with anyone
2) The gulf stream will have stopped so the UK will be a frozen hell
3) The governments green computing initiative will make it so there is not enough computing power to collect the road charges
4) A solar flare will have anhilated all the GPS satellites
5) The government will ban the use of GPS devices as a possible terrorist threat
6) The government will have locked up all the citizens because of ID card violations
anyone want to add others to the list?
25. Dick Vinegar
Rant rant rant. Now, can Peter or somebody post a comment on how to stop road congestion. A much more serious evil than road charging.
But no, that would need positive thinking.
26. Peter Cochrane
Karen = I just don't like them wasting my hard earned tax £££s! Peter
27. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous = Think the actual reason for a second SatNav system is really about control and reliability. But either or both are very easy to disrupt. Peter
28. Peter Cochrane
Rick = Well it certainly happened tro me before with the 3G industry and all the lunacy of the licence fees! Peter
29. Peter Cochrane
Simon = I would just like to see people thinking, modeling and analysing before spending. The waste of our tax £££s is enourmous already! Peter
30. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous Midlands = I have to say that it would be the next obvious step in a controlist nanny state! Peter
31. Peter Cochrane
Mark = Myself I would like to see them build some decent roads....Peter
32. Peter Cochrane
Antony = Not at all sure your assertion is true! If you go for thye DeltaData instead of all the Data I think it looks feasible. Peter
33. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous South = I have to carry my passport all the time now because of the continual requests for photo ID. And every time I pass through an airport it aint fun. So I am actually in favour of chips in everything including ID cards. The sooner the better as far I'm concerned. What I object to is layer upon layer of tax with layer upon layer of parasites employed to police the syatem and collect the money. We need more contributory members of the economy not less. Peter
34. Peter Cochrane
Bob = Pleased you liked it. I don't wanna, I don't wanna... pay any more silly taxes. Peter
35. Peter Cochrane
Nick = We seem to have got into a mode where corrupted statistics and ideas override common sense and the truth no matter what.
Any road pricing system can be crippled by people taking action. The ones being engineered right now are partricularly easy to damage. My real worries are the loss of GPS - which is a valuable facilit - and the enorous waste of tax ££a in the process.
Peter
36. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous Civil Servant
Sir, you are a prophet in your own land.
It is often the same in industry!
One or two consultants on the project have been banging the same drum. BUT the process is a political one and therefore will only be steered by impending failure and vilification.
I just hope I might have helped in some way to prevent any further waste of valuable manpower and money.
Peter
37. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous Forensic Specialist
How right you are! It will start off crude and just get more sophisticated and devilish. All the more reason for the protagonists to stop and think!
Peter
38. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous Here Work
I just calculated all my peak time journeys on major roads. And hey ho $3000/month.
Time for the small proportion - ie over 1M car drivers to speak up methinks!
Peter
39. Ken France
Peter, workable road pricing schemes will probably be based on a new generation of inertial tachograph fitted to vehicles. Once calibrated, these sealed units will be capable of logging vehicles position relative to a fixed point of reference. Data logged will be transmitted automatically via GSM - unblockable, unless the whole cell phone network becomes inoperative.
40. Peter Cochrane
Paddy = There will be no end to the creativity expeneded on this. What a shame the energy won't be focused on creating a healthier GDP. Peter
41. Peter Cochrane
Tony = To quote Stephen Hawking: "The possibilities are endless". Peter
42. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous UK Driver = Tinfoil is cheaper! Peter
43. Peter Cochrane
Dick = Road conjestion can be managed using GPS and other technologies to control flows and routes. BUT in the UK the major problem is the second rate infrastructure:
1) Traffic lights on islands
2) Traffic light stopping you leaving a motorway instead of phasing your entry
3) No left on red rule at lights
4) Vdery few clover leaf justions
5) Poor intersection design
6) Second rate traffic management
etc etc
Peter
44. Peter Cochrane
Ken = Ultimately the whole GPS network could be taken out by inertial systems based on nano-tech sensors. BUT, it will probably be 10 - 20 years to become an engineering reality.
Unfortunately I cannot get an accurate fix/estimate on this technology.
BUT a tamper proof in-car device will be an engineering challenge to make secure.
Peter