Should diesel vehicles be banned from the city centre?

[Cyclone]

Standard market dominance tactics.

 

Kill off all other competition, set whatever price you see fit.

 

That only works if there is also a barrier to entry.

 

If they kill off all the local taxi companies and then hike the price, local taxi companies will just open again.

[Dan_Ashcroft]

The unintended consequence of this will be:

i) a huge displacement of parked cars to just outside wherever the boundary is drawn

ii) a new circular route forming on backstreets just outside the boundary

iii) further inner city urban decay

 

Basically the city centre will wither and the unprepared inner suburbs will be overwhelmed with all the new traffic

[BHRemovals]

no they shouldn't unless the government gives me the cash to buy a new one.

[Dan_Ashcroft]

no they shouldn't unless the government gives me the cash to buy a new one.

 

It's not just diesels either. They are talking about petrol cars older than 2006 too. Combined they must make up a good 2/3s of all cars on the road.

[geared]

It's not just diesels either. They are talking about petrol cars older than 2006 too. Combined they must make up a good 2/3s of all cars on the road.

 

Yea it'll be a great time for the car industry, all those people needing a new motor to comply with new pollution taxes.

 

Funny really it's almost as if the government made some promises to the car industry that they wouldn't suffer post-brexit.

[Puggie]

Yea it'll be a great time for the car industry, all those people needing a new motor to comply with new pollution taxes.

 

When you peel away all the layers, what lies beneath is a nasty trade war between the auto manufacturers all attempting to influence regulation in their favour.

 

The European car makers actually lobbied the EU for stricter legislation which favoured diesel cars (european) over petrol cars (american), and to encourage the continued sales of diesel the EU put pressure on govts to keep the price of diesel below unleaded.

 

Of course when the Kyoto CO2 agreement was signed back in the 90s, the Americans were correct by suggesting the future was electric. They were right.

Twenty years later they now have Tesla which has overtaken Ford in market value. What have we got? Dirty diesels and scandal.

 

So to answer the OPs question 'Should diesel vehicles be banned from the city centre?' my answer is no.

Edited April 5, 2017 by Puggie

[Narrowboat]

As others have clearly stated the biggest polluters are the buses running around the city

[Cyclone]

As others have clearly stated the biggest polluters are the buses running around the city

 

It's not true of course, but it has been "clearly stated".

[Flexo]

As others have clearly stated the biggest polluters are the buses running around the city

 

Diesel cars emit 10 times more toxic pollution than trucks and buses, data shows

 

---------- Post added 06-04-2017 at 09:45 ----------

 

It's not just diesels either. They are talking about petrol cars older than 2006 too. Combined they must make up a good 2/3s of all cars on the road.

 

For London from 2019, yes. Those petrol cars older than 2006 will be 13+ years old and only a small minority of the petrol vehicles on the road.

 

Parts of London reached their annual pollution limit for 2017 in just 5 days this year! It's bad here but terrible there. The Mayor doesn't really have the option of doing nothing.

 

---------- Post added 06-04-2017 at 10:07 ----------

 

Again this can only happen in liberal markets where creative ideas for getting people from A to B aren't molested by 17th century regulation. There are many jurisdictions which still criminalise the sharing economy.

 

Here is an example of an Uber-like bus service that has recently started in Boston Massachusetts. Routes are dynamic based upon who's going where. All delivered using clever algorithms with customers getting to their destinations at 2x the speed of traditional bus service.

 

http://www.bridj.com/

 

Thanks for posting that link! That looks like a great service and so much more of a sensible way to operate buses. Having them run on fixed routes makes sense when that's the only way to do it, but having them run dynamically according to where people actually want to go at that time must be more effective.

 

It's not a particularly difficult service to set up - we already have all the components - it just needs the tenacity and funds to get a service through startup and into maturity.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Flexo

[geared]

The Mayor doesn't really have the option of doing nothing.

 

The government aren't exactly doing much to help out either though.

Everything is still very much reliant on CO2 emissions which favours diesel cars to a great extent.

 

New car tax rules? CO2 linked

Company car tax rules? CO2 linked.

 

This is despite everyone and their dog knowing full well Diesel engines produce much lower CO2 than petrol, and that NOx and particulate emissions are the main problem.

The government can't dissuade people from buying Diesel cars if they still actively incentivise the practise through taxation rules.