Congestion charging- facts of

Of the first 100,000 fines, 22,000 were dropped after successful appeals. .
             Roger Evans, the Tory transport spokesman in the London assembly, said: "The whole issue of penalties has been one of the weak points of the scheme from the word go. It all looks a bit shambolic. .
             "We have been trying to get the mayor to tell us more about TfL's contract with Capita but he has refused to do so." .
             A Capita spokesman said more than half a million cheques had been successfully processed: "Some teething troubles are inevitable in a scheme of this size and complexity, and this is a regrettable example.".
             Problems and issues.
             On average three months elapsed before operators were able to successfully set up fleet accounts. While for some companies the process was quite straightforward, for many it was an administrative nightmare. The Problems were such that on the day the charge went live, 17 February 2003, at least 800 operators, over half the.
             total number requiring fleet arrangements, did not have access to a fleet account. The chart below shows the proportion of different problems experienced by fleet account users.
             The survey shows that due to the London congestion.
             charge, vehicle operators now bear the cost of:.
             .
             Eligibility - problems with the registration of vehicles not owned, hired or leased by a company, eg privately leased employees' vehicles or demonstrators. There are also significant delays and bureaucracy.
             involved in changing from one type of fleet account to another.
             Registration - there are difficulties registering some types of vehicles. There are also problems adding vehicles to certain accounts.
             Charges - operators pay an additional £10 per transaction, even for some minor changes. They will also have to spend another £10 annually to renew the registration of each of their vehicles on a fleet account, even if none of the vehicle details have changed. Effectively this is at least another £1.