A £20 million Department for Transport award for ‘future mobility’ schemes has allowed the West Midlands Combined Authority to be the first to introduce the radical concept; an incentive to give up the car, rather than punitive stealth taxation to force us off the road.
It’s set to launch in Coventry later this year, but if successful, it will be rolled out to other parts of the West Midlands, and then nationwide.
Future mobility scheme
There will be an element of surrendering the car for a period of time (of which hasn’t yet been published), and the idea behind the scheme is to “stimulate a long-term sustainable shift in travel behaviour”, in a bid to reduce pollution and congestion, although some environmental groups doubt that it will have an influence on air quality.
Around 100 people will take part in the scheme initially, and although the pilot stages will be tax-payer funded, it’s thought that if the scheme’s successful, funding will come from private companies, including bus and train operators, and perhaps electric-car clubs.
The pitfalls
Putting aside issues such as the length of time that you’ll need to surrender your car for, whether the vehicle will be removed from your possession, or how it will be stored if it is, we need to look at the bigger picture. This is the first scheme of its type where the motorist has been considered, where incentivisation has been used rather than underhand ‘green’ taxes.
John Seddon, head of transport & innovation at Coventry City Council views it as an update to the scrappage schemes that have been used in the past, but “rather than trading in an older car for a newer one, it is trading in the car for the ability to use other modes of transport”.
It should also be noted that it won’t cost you money (as it would to purchase a newer car), nor are you selling/scrapping or giving up your car permanently – you’ll still have an asset at the end of the period. Effectively what you’re getting is free public transport at the cost of giving up your car for some time.
Congestion & charging
There’s no denying that measures need to be put in place to ease the flow of traffic, and up until now, the responsibility (and therefore the costs) have been directed toward the individual motorist. The argument is that we should leave the cars at home, and use expensive & unreliable public transport – all while paying to park our cars at home.
If successful, the ‘paid to stop driving’ scheme is a complete about-turn in respect of giving up the car, it’s almost like we’re being asked nicely to stop, rather than being told that we will stop, and that’s a marked change in strategy from the government and local authorities and a much-needed one.
Of course, some details need to be clarified – does surrendering the car mean 24/7 car-free? Or just commuting into the city? Will the car remain in our care? What would happen in an emergency?
It’s been said that some anti-car campaigners may not like the idea of actually paying motorists not to use their car. Surely, if they’re as committed to being as green as they say, that’s a small price to pay for helping to reduce pollution, re-educate motorists and bring about a step-change in the reliance of individual transportation?
Ridiculous!! Just invest the money in regular, affordable, convenient public transport and people will change travel habits. For me, public transport is invariably not an option. I can either not get to where I need to be in a timely manner or it is significantly more expensive than taking the car.
Perhaps there would not be as much congestion especially in towns if councils did not go around installing traffic lights every 50 yards and causing stop start traffic all the time. This would also help, potentially, reduce emissions since vehicles wouldn’t have to accelerate to get up to speed and then have to brake about 5 seconds later.
Around Coventry they enjoy fitting weirdly shaped roundabouts every few years that aren’t required (e.g A45 & Broad Lane) anyway, but if they don’t want to go ahead and completely change the roundabout they will just fit traffic lights at several different points on existing roundabouts so traffic cannot flow efficiently so it’s back to stop start traffic.
Trouble is that it seems that when they look to ‘improve’ one trouble spot they seldom take into account how it will affect others. Result is often that action in one place makes it worse somewhere else.
This is a positive way forward for city dwellers
Only if the alternatives to a car are available and cost effective, which is not even the case always in major cities. Smaller cities, towns or rural, forget it, there just is not the public transport infrastructure to make it viable.
Public transport….Always runs late – buses jam packed – uncomfortable.
Would cost my missus £53 a week to use the public bus to her place of work, after the bus stop come rain or shine or high winds she would have to walk a further half mile, to get to her place of work.
Using the bus she’d have to leave out the house at 8:45am and get to work for 9:55am [If she’s lucky]
Using the car she leaves out the house at 9:30am and arrives at work for 9:45am [start time 10am]
Her car insurance is £240 a year – She spends £15 a week in fuel – Parks outside her place of work for free.
Guess what form of transport she uses!!!!
You haven’t factored in VED or vehicle depreciation. Then of course there’s the health benefits of that 10 minute walk and the fact that time spent driving is essentially dead time – on a bus you can read or otherwise make use of the time.
Serendipity. . .
Why £53 a week? Can’t she get a weekly/monthly bus pass much cheaper?
Wouldn’t need to drive anywhere near as much if our post office hadn’t been closed, shop and village petrol pumps gone and currently the pub closed as well, so at least an 8 mile trip is needed for local shops (just for a stamp!), or a 30 mile round trip for supermarket and discounted fuel.
Our rural roads (North Yorkshire) are full of delivery vans hurtling about on a deadline fulfilling internet orders and now we have 4 supermarkets adding to the fray. We need to be able to shop locally again to cut these unnecessary trips down.
As a motorist who has just bought an electric bike for the 20 mile round trip to and from work, this is a great idea. However, I work in the North East and whilst the light nights and decent weather is here from now until hopefully the end of September, I will reluctantly have to get back in the car, during the cold, dark and wet winter months up here! That said a pro rata payment scheme would be great, as it would give people the flexibility to use their bike or other forms of public transport during the week, whilst retaining the ability to use the car on a weekend.
I live in a village. It has a limited bus service, linking major towns. However, to get to a dentist or doctor is impossible by public transport. It would take me an hour on a bike but impossible to walk as there are no footpaths..Uber j
has just come to the area but looking at the app yesterday it said no cars available. I combine as many visits as possible in one outing with my car and do approximately 4000 miles a year.. if I gave up my car I would really not have a life. For me a car is not a luxury or something I could give up. It really is a necessity unless a flexible transport system is available and that is as likely as pigs flying.
Why not link mileage to car tax- insurances and MOT’s?
New methods of number-plate ID could be used for people who want to join a scheme were by you leave the car at home and use public transport or go on foot/ cycle.
I use my car less that 3 days a week but I pay tax and insurance for 365 days a year. It’s a no brainier, giving cash incentives is not the way to go.
I have honestly never thought of this and feel I’ve missed a trick there. On the face of it this seems a banging idea :0
Great idea. Leaves more room on the road for me and other car enthusiasts..
The short answer is public transport does not always go where you want to, and can be unreliable.
Furthermore, in the event of wanting to get to say a hospital etc when public transport is off the road, what then ?
Local authorities keep pumping out the arguments regarding pollution etc, but they are the ones who creat6e
In my area, some public transport in operated by the local authority, whose drivers leave engines running at termini or timing points. We also have park and ride on the outskirts, which are closed early evenings, when there are events on in town, meaning traffic has to venture into town to find a place to park.
I think it’s a good idea but i live in the country eight miles from the town and we get two buses a day
It would be impossible for me to meet friends for sewing as there are no buses to one place, and very few buses from our village. In addition I have a bad back so cannot carry things, such as my sewing machine.. How would I get my shopping done? Everything in the village has been closed down. No buses to our doctors surgery either. Our home would become like a prison.
First impression is it sounds good If payment can be used for busses, electric vehicles or bike-share. Could £3000 per year lease an electric car and perhaps resolve the emissions problem in cities? Are there savings on road repair to be made by limiting vehicle size and weight in rural areas swapping near empty Double Decker busses for mini busses or cars?
What buses in rural areas?
It’s a reasonable idea, but won’t work for everyone. Personally I drive to the nearest Metrolink stop (Manchester Tram system) which takes about 10 mins (3ish miles away) and then obviously get on the tram. Given the distance is slightly too far to walk (40 mins each way) I reckon £3,000 a year would just about make it viable for me to get a taxi to the tram stop and cover the cost of one shopping trip per week. Hence could go down to just my wife having a car. So it could work in my case. However, I believe that making public transport so cheap that it is practically free is the way ahead.
To reduce pollution spend the money on forcing fuel producers to put in the additive that reduces harmful emissions.
Stop spending money on HS2 and bring back the trains Beeching axed. Public transport is appalling. Get businesses to transport their goods by rail.
Just checked my 6 mile route to work, just 8 miles outside the throbbing metropolis of Lincoln. Whilst I could make it in by 9am using public transport, I’d arrive home an hour after I’d need to set off the following day. All trips between the 2 points taking much longer than simply walking.
I’ve got five cars so I could easily put one out of use and claim the £3000. I reckon the process has too many loopholes.
Need tram systems like Manchester, make them free or ridiculously cheap for weekly ticket. Would also mention Manchester’s free city centre circular bus. I don’t live anywhere near Manchester but I always admire their forward thinking re public transport.
I do live in Manchester and the public transport including the trams is garbage. One local, who has been looking for work for months, gets a new job, and take the tram almost to his new place of work… after under 2 week he has tried trams and buses an declared.. “sod that, Im buying a car to commute. At least its clean and reliable”. Go figure!
Zero carbon is needed more than ever – what we’ve already put in the atmosphere will cause a 20 metre rise in sea level or more! So we need to prevent people using combustion engines and this initiative is one much needed trial. Bring it on.
What tosh, where did the 20 metres come from, besides if its already in the atmosphere its too late
That’s a helpful point of view – “if we’re scr*wed, why bother changing?” Generations to come will have to live with the impact of our poor choices and they will either look back and see that we tried to do something to prevent further deterioration, or curse people like you for not giving a 5hit.
For a return trip to work for me, it would cost nearly £60 a DAY – That’s £36 for the train and another £20 for the Taxi as there are no bus routes even remotely near where I work. Even factoring in fuel, insurance, tyres, servicing and the HP on the car itself, it’s still MUCH cheaper for me to drive! I don’t pay road tax as its free for my car, and I pay £25 a month for warranty which even includes EVERYTHING bar tyres, even the clutch and cambelt are changed for free when they reach the end of their life!
Fact: no buses after the college run; day time buses few and far between. Fact: train station too far to walk; Council stopped bus to station, now it’s as and when or indeed, if. Fact: no decent shops, nearest 10-20 miles away; no buses run directly or regularly. Fact: carrying 4/5 bags of shopping on a regular basis without a car, with no buses cannot be achieved on a push bike. Fact: country lanes surround, dangerous when using push bike. Fact: never met anyone who does not use their car without a valid reason and often stagger usage so as not to interact with rush hour. Fact: not enough charging stations for electric cars and they are small so useless for individuals with disabilities or arthritis or bad backs. Fact: a ridiculous idea thought up by a pen pushing numpty whom does not get out in the real world.
Backwards Britain strikes again!
Next month I get charged £12.50 a day for entering central London, but yet paying for diesel from Hampshire and being charged that extra fee is still cheaper than my girlfriend and I paying for a train fare to Waterloo.
Public transport costs are what’s making the car option the go to method and this is a terrible band aid solution to an underlying issue that the government time and time again refuses to address – public transport needs to be not for profit if we are to tackle climate change, pollution and congested roads.
I’m pretty sure they’ve already done this in Scandinavia somewhere with some success. Thing is most of us pay a lot to have a car for the convenience and whilst getting the public transport fares paid might be nice that’s not the major factor stopping me using it. Unless and until public transport is frequent, convenient, and low-cost, and I can reliably get all my bulky shopping delivered for free, it’s simply so much easier to use the car, but without sufficient demand for public transport the operators, unless subsidised with public money, will only run profitable routes/timetables. Bit of a Catch-22. The money would probably be better spent on investing in improving public transport and subsidising fares for all.
In runal areas this would be a failure as councils are cutting back bus 🚌 sevices and fares are very pricey 🤔. and waiting up to 2 hours for a bus.
As for sharing a car this can affect your insurance policy 😉 if you are carrying passengers you could be libel if you could be involved in accident they might sue you? full stop 🛑.
What was the point of closing rail lines back in the 1960’s,
The people where told to get whatever forms of transportation to get to work and now we are told to get out of our own mode transportation to use public transportation that’s a laugh as Britain has one worse transportation in the world 😡🤬🚌
I need to travel to a hospital 30 miles away. I cannot walk very well due to damaged lungs.so I have to get two buses to get to railway station then leave the train and walk to catch another bus and walk again impossible for me and tales over 3 hrs altogether
. Takes 42 mins by road apparently. That in itself is not good for 30 miles. This to get from a Cheshire village to Salford
Agreed okay if you lived in a city. But I .lived in Coventry in 1970’s and to get to the outskirts of Leamington Spa would have been 3 buses.This on a Sunday morning was not possible even then, when buses were generally more frequent than the present day.
The lack of public transport generates the use of the car, and this in turn creates less demand for public transport. Less income for bus companies so reduce services further.
Taxi companies are thriving, but cost .
Free travel is a possible answer.
Well done for Coventry to at least try it.
Oh really; councils going to pay motorists “for not using their cars” – who came up with this preposterous idea? Where’s the money coming from? Does anyone SERIOUSLY believe in this idea? So after a year or two the said council will be unable to balance their books and so will recover that money from residents through a council tax hike! You NEVER EVER get something for nothing and don’t fall for this con-trick.
Utterly stupid idea for one public transport does not work for a lot of people’s along with what on earth is going to be taxed to make up what these muppet are spending
Heading more and more to a Dystopian state. Blame councils for slowing traffic through inappropriate limits and traffic lights all to slow the movement down. I cannot walk very far due to injuries caused whilst serving in the military so why will I be penalised for not being able to leave my vehicle at home. If I had the means I would leave this country.
Have you heard the good work mark Steele is doing? Getting the message out about the military grade weapons LED/5G being used against the public.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7jiLPIADKY
As a retired person I need the car less – certainly not on a commuter basis, but when I do go out my age-related lack of mobility means that I can’t easily use public transport. I /need/ a car for access to essential services like food and medical treatment. Maybe this is a scheme that could be tried out on a purely voluntary basis – something like a car-share scheme so I get the car every 3 days and for some weekends, and pass it on to someone else when I’m finished. If we had genuinely autonomous cars that could drive themselves to the next temporary user it would be great. Short term, I don’t think the idea is practical – but that’s what trial schemes are for: lets see if this works at all, and maybe some variation or other will start to reduce the number of actual car owners out there…
Interesting comments here from a bunch of selfish, self-serving, self-righteous, short-sighted idiots. It’s all about me, me, me. Oh, poor little me, why should I have to get on a bus, or a train, or a tram, or a bike when I can cause so much more pollution and congestion if I just get in my own car. Your time is coming. Within the next ten years the age of the private car will be over. And for all of those bleating that “I live in a village and there are no buses”, well, clearly you were forced at gunpoint to live somewhere inaccessible except by car – and maybe, just maybe, if you hadn’t been stitched into your car, your use of public transport might have encouraged an improvement to services. Feel free to keep your head stuck in the sand, or somewhere less pleasant – change is coming.
Aww, andrew not happy then….? if people dont stand up for themselves then who will stand up for them? “nobody” so it comes a no surprise will will comment on how such a scheme would affect them…. well, not to those of us with half a brain.
Actually, quite happy. Stand up for themselves? Really? “I have made stupid choices about where to live and will therefore continue to drive my car wherever and whenever I want and the world will bend to suit me” is a completely selfish and unrealistic attitude. I have a car. I drive it when I need to. The rest of the time, I take the train. I chose where I live based on there being decent public transport access to where I work. Why didn’t you do the same? Actually, it’s probably because you admit to only having half a brain…..
What side of the bed did you get out people pay a lot of money in taxes for car ownership, so get all the cars off the road and see what happens you can’t have everything for free,,,
Same side as always. As do I. But I don’t expect the whole world to revolve around me and my divine right to drive everywhere.
Why is it that because the problem has arisen in London primarily that the rest of the country’s resposible motorists have to be subdued just to help out London …..AGAIN
Great Idea. I hate driving and use public transport as much as possible but it’s not always convenient as I have to travel before 09:30am when my bus pass is usable. I have to take my partner to and from work as she is a non-driver. This scheme would be a great benefit to us. Can we have it now in Northamptonshire please?
I think that OAP free bus passes should only be given to OAPs willing to give up their driving licence. This would get some cars off the roads and save money on bus passes that are not really needed.
If I knew who to write to to suggest this I would do so. Anyone know where to write?
So, your not actually getting anything other than a free ride on a bus, if it turns up. Ill give this one a miss thanks
Sounds great to me!
Good idea to get people to use public transport but people will always want to be independent and drive their own car. Public transport is not cheap and a bus from where I live to town and back would cost £5.40p per day. Normally the busses are empty although I saw about eight people once when I took the bus. It’s amazing how they can afford to run. It’s three miles each way. In China, busses and trains cost about 30 pence. The busses and trains are usually full because it’s better than using your own transport. We need to encourage people to use public transport by making fares cheaper and busses more frequent. The busses on my route stop at 9pm. No good at all for an evening out.
I guess that this article was meant to be posted next Monday, April 1st.
The size of our town has almost doubled, whilst public transport has been reduced. Consequently, we have to use our cars even more.
Drivers will have to be gently persuaded to stop driving everywhere , you cannot force them they will resist ,Hope this idea works
Another case of let’s fling enough mud and see how much of it sticks
Why exactly do “anti-car” campaigners think they have a right to stop us using motor-cars ?
I don’t particularly like cars or driving them, but our society has evolved over the past 100+yrs in such a way that everyone either depends on personal motorised transport or depends on someone who has access to personal motorised transport.
You can’t uninvent the motor-car just to suit left-wing green-meanies who hate the modern world and all it entails.
Perhaps these Greenpeace gobsh1tes should be made to take 3 children to school, do the weekly shop, take an elderly parent to a hospital appointment and go to work – all on a push-bike, in the rain. If they had to do that for a week, they would end up probably end up outdoing Jeremy Clarkson in their new-found enthusiasm for the internal combustion engine !!
Why do some car drivers think they have a right to drive where they want, when they want, then leave their car wherever they like for however long they like? It’s not a right, it’s a privilege. And please stop generalising – the majority of commuter journeys made on a daily basis do not involve a car – and nationally over 40% of households don’t even own a car.
As usual, the government want both ends of the stick, they want us o buy the cars that they make taxes and VAT on, the add on for the government at that point we end up fleeced again with more tax ( road tax ). Then they want us to leave the car not use it, but use buses that are filthy and most of the time, few and far between. Worst of all the buses are, totally unrmeliable, then if and when you do find one, they go round the world almost before getting to a destination doubling or trebling the time in transit. Why don’t the government practice what they preach, and set by example ie,. Bin all the ministerial limos entourages, and follow on fuel-guzzling cars and tell the prime minister, lords, royals ministers etc etc etc. to get the bus or the tube. that way saving the taxpayer a small fortune.
Congestion is a huge problem and is one of the factors that confirms this country is over populated. We need to look at reducing the population not allowing it to increase until all the land is covered in houses and industry.
Won’t work so well in Scotland. Buses once an hour and everywhere so rural and a distance away. Not a chance I would give up my car for any sum of money.
Great generalisation. Live in Scotland. In a village. Less than 20 minutes by train to the “big smoke” and work.
I live in the West Midlands. Local transport networks are not good, certainly no way near robust enough to accommodate any shift in travel behaviour. No way near. Personally speaking, it takes me less than half an hour to commute to work by car in traffic. Travelling by bus, I need to leave at least an extra hour early to arrive at work on time. The only incentive that will encourage me to change my habits is major investment and improvement in public transport.
What about the area,s where public transport does not cover and the people that cannot use public transport.Are they to be confined to their homes.
Hello There. I’m 71 in June and I have a car but if the local authority or government will pay me I’ll stop driving tomorrow
R Cavill.
Haha then there’s a ad at the bottom to buy a car lol, I don’t think this will work some how, waste of taxpayers money again
That’s all well and good but what about the disabled people who use powered wheelchairs they are unable too use buses etc my wife uses one so public transport is out if she wants to go anywhere of any distance I take here there in her WAV vehicle which allows her too ride in the back still sitting in her wheelchair
I have to drive as I don’t finish work until 7pm. The last bus leaves Strood in Kent to where I live in Allhallows is 6.40pm
The “punitive stealth taxes” you refer to – presumably fuel tax – is the only fair way of taxing the most-used cars. Combined with an MOT test which penalised the many vehicles which have high emissions – and reduced the road tax on low emitters – this would be a more effective way of cutting pollution and a fair way too. It could be used to fund a third-party-only insurance cover scheme so that those who are injured by uninsured drivers do not suffer financially.