London Congestion Charge

Why Metric was chosen for the capital’s congestion charging scheme.

 

Ever since February 17, 2003, all eyes have been on London. The world has been monitoring the progress of the Capital’s historic congestion charging.

 

In the full glare of publicity, the introduction went very smoothly and it has since been ‘so far so good’ for all concerned with congestion charging in central London.
During the development stages of the scheme Metric was invited to support the bid of Capita Business Services to operate central London congestion charging.

 

Bill Laurie, Sales Director of Metric takes up the story: “We went to many meetings with representatives of Capita and Transport for London who run the congestion charging scheme. Capita selected Metric as an integral link in the payment process, providing a convenient way for drivers to pay the charge. The ease with which they can pay is vital and was one of the key reasons why the winning bid was chosen”.

 

Metric’s actual development work began in early 2002 with the software for a new keypad and a credit card wall mounted cabinet. Metric adapted its state of the art Accent ticket machine to take alpha numeric characters, as the whole of the vehicle registration plate had to be entered into the ticket vending machine and recorded.

 

All 101 Metric ticket vending machines, which only accepted credit and debit cards, were sited in many major car parks and hospital car parks within the charging zone as well as in the Motorway services on the M25. The machines were on-line to validate credit / debit cards through Credit Call Communications Ltd, before a receipt for payment was issued. The whole scheme revolved around drivers, who are paying to register their vehicle number plate on a database, for journeys within the charging zone, which was then checked against the database.

 

Bill Laurie continues, “The machines at the time wouldl only accept credit cards, so we had to abide by the Apac committee regulations for unattended terminals, as well as the Data Protection Act so that users would know that their personal details were safe. The ticket vending machines also gave a receipt which discloses the details of the transaction and has its own unique number”.

 

If the motorist made an error when entering details, the keypad enabled them to back space or cancel a transaction prior to pressing the ‘accept’ button and start again.  The machine also displayed graphics which helped to lead the motorist through the various stages including which buttons to press to make the required payment. Motorists who use invalid credit or debit cards would find their card is declared ‘invalid’ on the machines display and the transaction will be automatically aborted.

 

All the machines were on-line to Metric’s call centre, providing real time details on the machine. If a machine needed attention or went out of service, a central computer would automatically telephone for help through the message pagers of Metric’s team of service engineers covering the London area.

 

Metric has more than 7,000 machines which control on-street parking in London. However unlike these traditional machines, when the London congestion ticket vending machines were installed they were easy to recognise by their distinctive logo and lettering style.