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This is one of a selection of general interest articles relating to the application of GPS tracking.
To find out more about how Zest Tracking helps its clients to exploit GPS tracking, whether it is for vehicle tracking, mobile phone, or Blackberry tracking or dedicated tracking units please explore the rest of this site, or contact us for an informal discussion
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Vehcile Tracking
Fleet Tracking Can Help Reduce City Congestion Charge Fines
Several cities (including Stockholm, Singapore and Milan) worldwide have followed the example of London and introduced a congestion zone to discourage the use of motor vehicles in city centres during peak hours. The benefits for the city are compelling. For example, there has been a 21 per cent reduction in the volume of traffic entering the congestion zone (70,000 fewer cars a day) and a six percent increase in the usage of buses, not to mention well over £100 million being raised each year to be invested in improving the city's transport infrastructure.
However, Congestion zone charges are something of a problem for fleet operators who need to cover a city such as London.
In fact, it is estimated that 30,000 people each week forget to pay the London Congestion Charge. Many of these are drivers of fleet vehicles who cost their employers a considerable sum of money in fines. Although you only have to pay the charge if one of your vehicles enters the congestion zone, if they do enter it then you must remember to pay the charge or you will incur a fine.
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Whilst the charge in London is just £8 if paid by midnight on the day of travel, or £10 if paid by midnight the following night, failure to pay by then escalates to a £120 fine thereafter. Very often, drivers who are not used to driving in the city may not actually realise that they have entered the zone and thus have incurred a fine. Where drivers do not enter this zone as a matter of course each day then it would clearly be very useful for a fleet manager to be alerted in some way when one of his drivers has entered the congestion zone so that he can pay the fee and avoid a costly fine.
To counteract the risk of drivers encroaching into a city congestion zone, many fleet operators who already use satellite GPS vehicle tracking technology for other reasons are using the same system to set up a perimeter alarm around the congestion charge. The perimeter alarm can be configured to notify the organisation each time a vehicle passes into the congestion zone, which will give plenty of time to ensure that only the minimum charge need be paid and avoid the cost of unnecessary fines.
Furthermore, some businesses have taken the alerts one stage further so that the alert leads on to offering the user a choice of payment option, whether paying by text, or making a phone call to the London Congestion Charge Call Centre.
For a business that routinely picks up congestion charge fines, then it is likely that the cost savings from avoiding fines would be a sufficient benefit in its own right to justify the cost of vehicle tracking, not even taking into account all of the other cost saving opportunities that could be realised. Where tracking is already in place, then setting up a perimeter alert around each congestion zone that is likely to be encountered will be well worth the brief time taken to set up.