Hey everyone, welcome to another blog from the team here at Hirebrid, today’s blog will discuss the recently introduced ULEZ charge and how this has impacted the areas in which it operates.
Every PCO driver in London, and for that matter any driver who has a car that doesn’t meet the new emissions standards (please check our previous blog on this topic) is liable to pay the charge. It is in place to get rid of high carbon polluting cars which harm the environment and provide us with less cleaner air. TfL have said that the ULEZ charge will help to reduce carbon emissions and pollution in the capital over the number of years that it is running, currently there is no “end” date which has been announced from TFL.
On the other hand TfL has benefitted greatly since the introduction of the ULEZ charge. It has been reported that TfL makes £220,000 a day from their pollution levy. This meant an average of 17,400 older polluting vehicles paid the charge in its first month of going live.
Cars, motorbikes and vans pay £12.50 and coaches and HGVs pay £100 a day. This charge runs for 365 days a year 7 days a week. There is not even any respite on bank holidays.
The compliance percentage is 74% and this is an increase from 61 % weekday compliance in March. This suggests that a lot of drivers have updated or changed their vehicles to lower the carbon emissions they are producing.
Drivers are being given first warning letters if they are above the allowed emissions and forget to pay the charge. This means that TfL could have made at least an additional £240,000 but are giving drivers the chance to rectify their mistakes.
The ULEZ zone will be increased to North and South London in 2022.
As a registered and approved PCO driver you can be happy to know that with your car from Hirebrid you are fully compliant with all legislations and emissions standards that have been introduced by the TFL, we are glad that here at Hirebrid with yourselves that we are doing our bit to make our air cleaner and healthier for generations to come!
If you enjoyed this article or found it helpful please share and like with your friends, family and fellow PCO drivers