Re: Alice Springs to Darwin line, but wait, there is more.!

["Bill Miller" <backtran@optusnet.com.au>]

Well,  I was arguing the principle of where tax revenue should go, not the
how of implementation.

As a start I suppose, Tachographs (or whatever they are called) could be
used to record actual miles or some other technology associated with GPS.
Some combination of technologies has to be useable to get a mass distance
charge system going that does not require "an army of public servants".

Why is it the road transport guys howl so loudly whenever anyone mentions
using these methods for metering road usage? What are they afraid of?
Keeping truck inspection stations open more often wouldn't hurt either, this
might actually help to control overloading.

I am not arguing for a differential charging system for trucks that
parrallel rail lines vs ones that do not, just one that recovers ALL of the
cost of provision of that road relating to truck haulage (including
construction and maintenance of pavement and bridges that have to take 40t
instead of 2t). Any other normal company taxes should be on top of this,
since this is exactly how a profitable rail system would be (they pay for
their own ROW and then would pay company tax exclusive of this). If the
Gov't then wants to make things cheaper in the bush by provision of subsidy,
then everyone gets a break.

Could not agrre more about the current rail systems needing to get their act
together more and any hope of tany of the above happening will only occur
after this, not before.