"J. Chisholm" wrote in message
...

snip


Jim Chisholm
(who cycles, *drives* and travels by train about 3k miles by each mode
each year, and hasn't polluted the sky for years.

(my emphasis)

I'd like to know where I can find one of these non-polluting cars.

And trains, for that matter.

And computers as well.

In article , says...

Jim Chisholm
(who cycles, drives and travels by train about 3k miles by each mode
each year, and hasn't polluted the sky for years.

LIAR. Do you have electricity in your home? Do you have gas powered
central heating? Do you buy man made products?

--
Conor

Hi. This is my friend, Jack ****, and you don't know him.

In article

om, Dan Holdsworth writes

[1] Doing it this way, you could also look for mobile phones that appear to
be in use and moving along a motorway, and flag these locations up to the
local police, for much improved enforcement of anti-mobile laws.

There is no law against the use of a mobile phone while moving on a
motorway.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

On Thu, 20 Nov 2003 11:06:41 +0000, (Dan
Holdsworth) wrote:

On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 19:46:09 -0000, Oliver Keating

was popularly supposed to have said:

[...]

The problem is that fuel duty is an incredibly crude lever, because the
"true cost" of your journey depends strongly on time of day and location,
only a satellite based congestion charging system could account for this.

Actually, a satelite-based system is one of the poorer options for this
sort of pricing. GPS satelites are USA-controlled systems. If, as has
happened in the past, the US military decide that their enemies are using
it, the US government has the option to degrade the signals.

So, if you use satelites, you're beholden to a foreign power which although
it is our friend at the moment, may not be so in future. This is not a
sensible course of action.

Which is why the EU is building Galileo as a "public" (i.e. not
military) system:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/energy.../future_en.htm
--

ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø
Please reply to the group
Replies to this address will bounce!
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Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
In article

om, Dan Holdsworth writes

[1] Doing it this way, you could also look for mobile phones that
appear to be in use and moving along a motorway, and flag these
locations up to the local police, for much improved enforcement of
anti-mobile laws.

There is no law against the use of a mobile phone while moving on a
motorway.

Yes, there is. The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) (Amendment) (No. 4)
Regulations 2003. It doesn't come into effect until 1 Dec 2003, and it
only affects the use of a hand-held mobile by the driver. What I assume
you meant was that the system would not be able to distinguish between
legal and illegal use of a mobile mobile, not that all use was legal.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"Dan Holdsworth" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 19:46:09 -0000, Oliver Keating

was popularly supposed to have said:

[...]

The problem is that fuel duty is an incredibly crude lever, because the
"true cost" of your journey depends strongly on time of day and location,
only a satellite based congestion charging system could account for this.

Actually, a satelite-based system is one of the poorer options for this
sort of pricing. GPS satelites are USA-controlled systems. If, as has
happened in the past, the US military decide that their enemies are using
it, the US government has the option to degrade the signals.

So, if you use satelites, you're beholden to a foreign power which
although
it is our friend at the moment, may not be so in future. This is not a
sensible course of action.


The question of over-reliance on GPS systems (in general) is quite an
interesting one. However, in my opinion we will become more reliant on GPS
as time goes on, rather than less, especially with people like Air traffic
control talking about moving to a GPS based system rather than ground based
radar systems for aircraft. If this happens it would have such far-reaching
implications if the USA did turn off the signals that I doubt they would do
it.

However, even if they did, I don't see why Europe couldn't set up its own
system. You need a minimum of 4 satellites with atomic clocks on board
(although typically 7 is better for improved accuracy). I reckon these could
be launched into orbit for around ~£1billion - not a huge cost spread over
all of Europe.

The other problem is that the signal from the satelites is pretty weak,
and
thus susceptible to jamming from the ground. Whilst jamming detectors
could
be built in, this would not stop people deploying jammers near motorways
to
deliberately trigger such sensors. That sort of shenanigans would annoy an
awful lot of people, and lead to the system getting a reputation for being
crap.

But satellite-based navigation systems rely on other information too, like
current road speed and compass heading, and along with knowing what the road
map looks like, it can make a good estimate of where you are even if it
looses the signal for some time.

Mind you, that'd happen anyway. This government seems to automatically
out-
source big IT projects to the likes of Crapita and Electronic Disaster
Systems,
neither of whom have what you'd call an impressive track record.

Now, if you went with a system that used mobile phone cells as a means of
tracking vehicles [1] you might well be onto a winner. Mobile phone units
have a much, much stronger signal than do GPS satelites, they're much more
robust, and the tracking technology already exists. This sort of thing
could
also be used to spot and fine speeding motorists, rendering obsolete all
Gatso, Truvelo and other speed cameras at a stroke; think of the savings!

There is one key problem here, and it is to do with privacy.

The thing is, a GPS system works one way only, despite what people think it
cannot be used to track you. A sat nav congestion system would rely on the
system itself working out the charges, and information on where you have
travelled never needs to be sent to a central authority, therefore ruling
out any misuse of that data, not to mention the various privacy issues that
could make such a scheme unpopular.

With a mobile phone system, the authority knows *exactly* where you have
been, at what time etc. etc. That has to be a disadvantage, not just the
risk of misuse, but simply because a lot of the public may simply find that
unnacceptable.


[1] Doing it this way, you could also look for mobile phones that appear
to
be in use and moving along a motorway, and flag these locations up to the
local police, for much improved enforcement of anti-mobile laws.

Although of course, with hands-free kits being legal, and legitamate use by
passengers, I think the police would ignore it.

--
Dan Holdsworth PhD
By caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, By the beans of Java
do thoughts acquire speed, hands acquire shaking, the shaking
becomes a warning, By caffeine alone do I set my mind in motion

How prey, do they propose to enforce the use of satellite and / or cellular
phone tracker systems for cars ?

This is a madly expensive way to TRY to solve congestion in relatively small
number of places.
And, as with petrol, people will just pay what it takes to go where they
want to go and when they want to go.
Congestion is self defeating anyway, so unless you build more roads, you may
as well do nothing !
It would be much better to concentrate of keeping the traffic moving, sort
of stand Livingstone on his stupid head....
Regards,
Martin

"Martin²" wrote in message
...
How prey, do they propose to enforce the use of satellite and / or
cellular
phone tracker systems for cars ?

This is a madly expensive way to TRY to solve congestion in relatively
small
number of places.
And, as with petrol, people will just pay what it takes to go where they
want to go and when they want to go.
Congestion is self defeating anyway, so unless you build more roads, you
may
as well do nothing !
It would be much better to concentrate of keeping the traffic moving, sort
of stand Livingstone on his stupid head....
Regards,
Martin





Congestion charging is about keeping the traffic moving though. You remove
about 10% of the traffic by pricing it out, and then the traffic can move,
road capacity increases, and journey times drop ~30%

"Richard J." wrote the following in:


Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
In article

d.ntl.c om, Dan Holdsworth writes

[1] Doing it this way, you could also look for mobile phones
that appear to be in use and moving along a motorway, and flag
these locations up to the local police, for much improved
enforcement of anti-mobile laws.

There is no law against the use of a mobile phone while moving on
a motorway.

Yes, there is. The Road Vehicles (Construction and Use)
(Amendment) (No. 4) Regulations 2003. It doesn't come into effect
until 1 Dec 2003, and it only affects the use of a hand-held
mobile by the driver.

That's not a law against use of a mobile phone while moving on a
motorway. That's a law against the use of a mobile phone while driving.

What I assume you meant was that the system
would not be able to distinguish between legal and illegal use of
a mobile mobile, not that all use was legal.

He didn't say all use was legal.

--
message by Robin May, but you can call me Mr Smith.
Hello. I'm one of those "roaring fascists of the left wing".

Then and than are different words!

In article ,
(Oliver Keating) wrote:

Rural bus services are under threat because no one uses them, and those
that do are probably recieving about £10 subsidy per journey.

I'm not sure where you get this figure from. In Cambridgeshire they start
withdrawing subsidies when costs get much over £2 per passenger. Cambridge
City Council has just agreed to withdraw a couple of night routes because
their subsidies got over £10.

--
Colin Rosenstiel