The London congestion charge is a fee for some motorists travelling within those parts of London designated as the Congestion Charge Zone (CCZ). The main objectives of this charge are to reduce congestion, and to raise funds for investment in London's transport system. The zone came into operation in parts of Central London on 17 February 2003 and it was extended into parts of West London on 19 February 2007. Although not the first scheme of its kind in the United Kingdom, it was the largest when it was introduced, and it remains one of the largest in the world. Worldwide, several cities have referenced the London scheme when considering their own possible schemes. A payment of £8 is required for each day a vehicle enters or travels within the zone between 7am and 6pm (Monday-Friday only); a fine of between £60 and £180 is imposed for non-payment.
The organisation responsible for the charge is Transport for London (TfL); Capita Group operates the scheme under contract. The system is run on a generally automatic basis using CCTV and Automatic Number Plate Recognition.
Coverage
Area covered by the charge
The boundary of the zone, as of 19 February 2007, starts at the northern end of Vauxhall Bridge and (travelling in a clockwise direction) heads along the northern bank of the River Thames as Grosvenor Road, the Chelsea Embankment and Cheyne Walk. From there, it heads north, along the eastern edges of the Kensington and Earl's Court one-way systems, part of the A3220, with the roads in between charged, before continuing to the A40 Westway as the Holland Road and the West Cross Route. The boundary then includes parts of North Kensington, but the actual boundary is defined by the West London Line railway track, which runs between Latimer Road (inside the zone) and Wood Lane (outside the zone), until Scrubs Lane, before turning east, following the Great Western Main Line out of Paddington towards Ladbroke Grove. Here, the boundary follows the Grand Union Canal and rejoins the existing zone at Edgware Road after skirting Paddington, by way of the Bishop's Bridge Road, Eastbourne Terrace, Praed Street and Sussex Gardens.
TfL has defined some free through routes, where drivers do not have to pay the charge. The main route is defined by the western boundary of the original zone Vauxhall Bridge Road, Grosvenor Place, Park Lane and Edgware Road, with some additions around Victoria. The Westway is the other exempt route.
Original area covered
The original boundary of the zone (17 February 2003 – 18 February 2007) was largely the London Inner Ring Road. Starting at the northernmost point and moving clockwise, the major roads defining the boundary were Pentonville Road, City Road, Old Street, Commercial Street, Mansell Street, Tower Bridge Road, New Kent Road, Elephant and Castle, Vauxhall Bridge Road, Park Lane, Edgware Road, Marylebone Road and Euston Road (other roads filled the small gaps between these roads). The zone therefore included the whole of the City of London, the financial district, and the West End, London's primary commercial and entertainment centre. There were 136,000 residents living within the zone (of a total population of around 7,000,000 in Greater London), though the zone was primarily thought of (and zoned) as commercial rather than residential. There was little heavy industry within the zone. Signs were erected and symbols painted on the road to help drivers recognise the congestion charge area.
Payment and concessions
Payment
As of 4 July 2005, the non-discounted daily charge for non-exempt vehicles is £8, or £7 for fleet vehicles. Any applicable daily charge must be paid for a vehicle that is driven on a public road in the Congestion Charge Zone between 7 am and 6 pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays in England and a period over Christmas. Drivers may pay the charge online, by SMS text message, in certain shops, or by phone. The charge may be paid the day after travel in the zone at an increased cost of £10.
While private drivers can pay the daily charge either the day before, on the day or on the following day, whether they are seen to enter the zone or not, the same does not apply to fleets of business vehicles. Businesses with a minimum of ten or more vehicles can register with TfL, and will be charged £7 per vehicle per day for vehicles in the fleet detected by the cameras. In May 2005, businessman Miguel Camacho set up fivepounds.co.uk, whose sole function was to sign up private drivers to their "fleet", thus offering the convenience of not having to pay the charge pro-actively, avoiding fines in the case of a forgotten journey and also potentially getting a "free journey" if undetected by the cameras. TfL, which obtains nearly half of its net revenue from fines, moved quickly to quash the loophole, by demanding that fleet operators provide the registration document for each vehicle in their fleet. Fivepounds went out of business on 26 February 2006.
Exemptions and discounts
Some vehicles such as buses, minibuses (over a certain size), taxis, ambulances, fire engines and police vehicles, motorcycles, very small three-wheelers, alternative fuel vehicles and bicycles are exempt from the charge, although some of the exemptions are 100% discounts that still require registration. Residents of the zone are eligible for a 90% discount if they pay the charge for a week or more at once, although there are administration charges – presently a minimum of £10 – for claiming the discount. Some residents who live close to the West London extension are also entitled to the resident's discount.
Drivers of foreign-registered vehicles are not exempt from the charge but the current lack of an international legal framework for the assessment and collection of traffic fines makes enforcement and recovery difficult. In 2005, The Guardian obtained documentation under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which showed that out of 65,534 penalty tickets issued to non UK registered vehicles, only 1,993 had been paid.
In October 2005, it was reported that two London embassies, those of the United States and Germany, were not paying the charge as they considered it to be a tax, which they are protected from paying under the Vienna Convention. Some other embassies do pay the charge. By May 2006, it was reported, the US embassy owed £270,000 in fines for non-payment. By August 2009 this had risen to £3.44 million. A TfL spokesperson stated that US embassies do pay tolls in Oslo and Singapore. TfL argues that the charge is a toll, not a tax. In April 2006, after not paying it since its introduction in February 2003, the embassy of the United Arab Emirates decided that its diplomats would now pay the charge.
TfL can and does suspend the congestion charge either in a small local area to cope with incidents and if directed to do so by a police officer. The congestion charge was suspended on 7 and 8 July 2005 in response to the terrorist attacks on London Transport. The congestion charge was also suspended on 2 February 2009, in response to an extreme weather event (heavy snow fall) in the London area.
Penalties and avoidance
Failure to pay results in a fine of £120, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days, but increases to £180 if unpaid after 28 days. Although avoidance has become more sophisticated, compliance with the scheme and terms of payment has improved over the last few years, as is evidenced by the income from penalties dropping by approximately a quarter between 2005 and 2007. However, even after charges were increased, enforcement charges still make up a significant proportion of the net revenues. Several newspapers have reported that copied number plates are being used to avoid the congestion charge, resulting in vehicle owners receiving penalty notices for failure to pay when their vehicles have not been inside the zone. TfL has stated it is keeping a database of these numbers and that they will trigger an alert. The 2008 annual report on the operation of the scheme shows that around 26% of penalties go unpaid, because the notice is cancelled on appeal or the amount cannot be recovered, for example if the registered keeper of the vehicle cannot be traced, is deceased, or bankrupt.
In 2007 a green motoring website alleged to TfL that owners of luxury cars were registering their vehicles as minicabs in order to qualify for exemption from the charge. Registering a vehicle as a minicab costs £82 plus £27 per year licence fee, much less than the congestion charge. TfL responded that it carried out regular checks to confirm that cars were being used for the purposes they were registered for, and that they had not discovered any such cases.
Operations and technology
Whilst TfL is responsible for the scheme, the operation is sub-contracted to an outside company. From the scheme's inception, Capita Group has been responsible for its day-to-day operation under a five-year contract worth around £230m. Having been threatened with the term
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