Wikipedia:Peer review/London congestion charge/archive1

London congestion charge

I've listed this article for peer review because it is a former Featured Article, which is now at GA status. I have rewritten large amounts of the text and added references to just about everything. I believe it to be a NPOV, well referenced and comprehensive article. I have addressed the comments of the GA reviewer as best I can, with two left as "doing" because I am not sure if I need to add more detail. Being so close to an article, I am concerned that I am not seeing it from a broader angle and would appreciate comments on the prose, content and scope.

Thanks,

Regan123 (talk) 01:11, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Its a complete and factual review of the facility. I made a couple of minor copyeds. I think a few more visuals would improve the article - perhaps pie-charts summarising the results of surveys? The figures within large bodies of text can be a bit daunting - but that might just be the lateness of the hour. No, it's a fine, clearly written summary of everything there is to know about the London Congestion charge. Kbthompson (talk) 01:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

One minor point which is niggling me (on a quick skim through - it may be addressed elsewhere) is the claim in the lead that it "serves as the model for similar schemes worldwide" - wasn't the London model directly lifted from Singapore's? — iridescent 17:17, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion. We have lots of sources saying that people from worldwide have visited the London scheme to see how to do one, but I can't find anything saying London learned from Singapore. I agree that it seems very likely though. Will keep looking. Regan123 (talk) 17:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Just done a quick copy edit. I have edited the lead paragraphs to remove the duplicated sentence on aims and moved that further up as I think the reason for the charge is more important than the amount charged at that point. I have also tried to pick-up and correct plural and singular mismatches (companies and organisations should be singular, e.g. "TfL is" not "TfL are") and informality in the writing style. I've replaced "Transport for London" with TfL throughout for consistency, corrected spellings and confusing ellipsis, standardised % and percent, etc. Given the amount of text, it would be helpful to make the images a bit bigger. The congestion charge zone map diagram also needs to be updated to show the expanded zone as well. Whilst the article has plenty of references and seems to be up to date, the writing still needs a bit of a polish. --DavidCane (talk) 00:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. Most appreciated. Regan123 (talk) 13:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style. If you would find such a review helpful, please click here. Thanks, APR _t 20:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

• I immensely enjoyed reading this article, and I learned a lot from it. Though all the information belongs on Wikipedia, some of it could be effectively spun off into other articles. The first part of the "History" section, regarding road tolls in the UK before 1900, is not directly connected to the 21st-century London congestion pricing. Also, the description of congestion pricing in other cities such as Singapore and Stockholm should probably get just a brief mention, with further details to be linked in the main article on congestion pricing. The lead section is effective, but the third paragraph deals briefly with two separate issues, and could be better focused. Overall, it's easy to see why this was once a featured article, and I think it is still at or near FA caliber. Shalom (Hello • Peace) 03:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Shalom, I've found it really interesting in helping to expand this article. I tried to reword your in the section on the long term effect on congestion. I agree that it is quite surprising how an apparently big reduction in vehicles results in only a 7% improvement in congestion. After reading the detailed figures in their reports, it suggests that TfL's PR has been somewhat selectively reporting the benefits this has made on congestion. To explain, there were nearly 50% more long-term streetworks & lane closures in the base year before charging started in 2004 & 2005, and then works doubled in 2006, according to TfL's report. TfL concluded that the degradation of journey times in 2006 was largely down to these works, yet nowhere have they reported on the implication if that. Namely that, by the same measure, simply removing streetworks in 2004 & '5 could have resulted in some or all of the alleviation that was recorded. In a properly-conducted study one would question how much of the improvement in journeys times was actually down to the reduction in traffic caused by the congestion charge, versus the improvement in flows caused by better street management. Possibly that has been done but this is not in the public domain.

This is an age-old issue with highways; I've got doubled traffic flows in a road network after some predictive modeling to tweak street light phasing, roundabouts and lane management. Driver behaviour also makes a difference - the effect might be different in a provincial market town where people drive less aggressively ;-) The scheme also heralded the removal of the hop-on hop-off double decker and the introduction of long articulated buses - there have been theories about the delaying effect of such long vehicles in urban networks, and the effect is there to be seen. Thus the bendy bus might be undoing some of the benefits, but I'm not aware of any attempt to measure this effect here. We may never know, as the Western extension is probably going to create a whole range of new variables that will mean that next year's results will be even harder to explain.

I suspect that politically it may be a hard thing to announce that a third of private cars and minicabs have been discouraged off the roads, for perhaps a 7% saving in journey time. But I am wary of stating this in the article as the absence of reported research into the effects of the previous road conditions make it hard to get a real figure, and would be bordering onto WP:OR. (Obviously there are other benefits, such a reduction in emissions and local air quality, and the introduction of a new funding mechanism for public transport. However it is apparent that the benefits have been less than originally claimed, and it is possible that some of these goals could have been achieved by other means.) Ephebi (talk) 10:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for the comments Shalom and to Ephebi for his continued expansion of the article. To the specific points you make it is always a difficult balance on providing context. However there is more information to come on the general issues onto other articles. Stay tuned!

Unfortunately I am working very long days at the moment so am unable to give the article the attention it deserves. I will be back at the weekend. Regan123 (talk) 19:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)