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9.4.7 The main asm of establishing garaging requirements is to ensure that residentialstreets are not cluttered with parked vehicles. The effective restriction on totalvehicles which results is a by-product. While on-street residential parking has been aproblem in Hong Kong in the past more cars are now parked off-street. The policealso anticipate serious problems of enforcement with this option. For these reasons,this policy would merit re-examination only if on~street residential parking onceagain becomes a serious problem.Vehicle Standards and Classification9.4.8 High vehicle standards enforced by annual inspections are primarily safety measurespractised in many countries. However, higher vehicle standards effectively influencevehicle ownership by raising the cost of motoring. It is considered that theintroduction of private car inspections in 1986 was responsible for extending for afurther year the downward trend in licensed vehicles initially caused by the cartaxation increases of 1982. Annual inspections are now required for cars over 6years old; extending the scheme to newer cars, while appropriate for safety reasons,is unlikely to have the ownership reduction impact of the initial scheme since newercars can be expected to pass inspections with less costly repair work.9.4.9 Specification of vehicle design requirements is necessary if different classes ofvehicle are taxed at different rates or otherwise treated differently. This is the casecurrently with goods vehicles which are taxed at much lower rates than private cars.As a result, vehicles such as some light vans are being registered as goods vehiclesto obtain low tax rates, but subsequently used as private cars. To prevent this abuse,vehicle standards for goods vehicles need to be more tightly defined if the taxdifferential with private cars is to be maintained.9.5 Vehicle Use Controls9.5.1 The problem with controls on vehicle ownership, discussed in the previous section,is that they are non-selective as they affect traffic on roads in the New Territories justas much as traffic in Central in the middle of the peak. Vehicle use controls offer theopportunity to be more discriminating in the management of traffic growth.Area Pricing9.5.2 Area pricing aims to charge motorists for the use of roads in selected districts, withthe highest charges for the most congested districts. Frequent users of busy roadswould incur high charges but the more casual motorist, by careful selection of timesand routes, could avoid road charges altogether. The practical effect should be lesstraffic on the busy roads as motorists avoid the congested and hence expensivedistricts.9.5.3 The main difficulty with area pricing is in devising a practical method for collectingcharges from the motorist. This leads to at least three different schemes:Admission ChargesSupplementary LicensesElectronic Road Pricing9.5.4 Admission Charges—A cordon is set up around the area to be charged with tollgates installed at all entry points. Toll charges can be varied by time of day to makepeak hour entry more expensive, and charges can be abandoned altogether atoff-peak times, on Sundays and on public holidays. The disadvantages of such ascheme are clear; land is needed for the toll barriers, and the practical problems oflocating barriers would probably dictate the limits and coverage of the scheme ratherthan pure traffic control considerations. A further disadvantage is that the operationof the toll barriers requires traffic to stop; resulting delays are dependent on thenumber of toll booths and hence size of the toll plaza. With high traffic flows, largetoll plazas would be required, perhaps the size of the existing cross-harbour tunneltoll plaza for an average urban four-lane highway; with the cost of land in HongKong, it is difficult to see such a scheme as being practical.173