[sustran] Investing in sustainable transport and branding (WAS 14 million USD cool license plate)

[Carlosfelipe Pardo]

I was amazed when I saw cars such as Porsches and Lotus on the road in 
Singapore (where car prices are approx 3 times the regular market 
value). Paul Barter later mentioned that this is an effect of higher 
costs on goods, where very rich people will buy something stupidly 
expensive, just to show that they're very very rich and exclusive (we 
never really got to discuss this at length). I think the same happens 
with these license plates: exclusiveness and "show-off" factor makes 
them spend stupidly high amounts of money in a piece of metal which has 
the only characteristic of being unique and easy to remember. I once 
heard a high-level staff of a UN agency talk about his one-digit license 
plate with great pride, which was given to him because he was a UN 
employee.

So, similar to what Zvi is saying, my main argument is related to the 
fact that one could take advantage of these "prestige factors" by 
creating specific regulations that redirect the revenue of these 
interesting fashion statements and invest them in sustainable transport 
measures. I am sure all of us would be able to come up with ideas of 
what to do with 14 million USD from a license plate auction!

And yes, some sort of branding is necessary to say "this guy paid a lot, 
and his money is being used for x and y stuff to improve". That is "his 
ride is not so free". I was also discussing yesterday that people riding 
public transport should also be given feedback on their positive impact 
on the environment, society (health, safety) and economy due to their 
riding a bus or metro or whatever. Could be a sign on the station 
entrance showing approximately how many emissions are saved because 
they're not using a car (also similar to what John Ernst once said about 
a large screen in exclusive public transport lanes that would show how 
many people are moving in that lane, while another screen showing how 
many (few) people ride on the mixed lane.

I won't comment Todd's remark about the rationale behind charging (or 
branding) one or another of these transport-related elements (fuel or 
whatever). I leave it to others.

Best regards,

Carlos.

Zvi Leve wrote:
> Given that people are clearly willing to pay more to purchase an 
> automobile (or a licence plate) which makes some sort of 'fashion 
> statement', wouldn't it be really cool if someone could find some way 
> to convince people to make a similar statement by 'voluntarily' paying 
> more for the fuel that they put in their cars? For example, one could 
> choose to buy "green petrol" which would have a certain surcharge per 
> liter of fuel, and the proceeds could be used to offset the car's 
> carbon footprint (for example).
>
> The tricky part is how to make the choice of fuel into a visible 
> "fashion statement" - green licence plates anyone? Ideally the 
> symbolic part would even be flexible with the choices that one makes. 
> Feel like supporting your national football team this week? Buy 'viva 
> Espagna' fuel and show your colors!
>
> Anyway, I think that the idea does have potential. Obviously no one 
> wants to pay more taxes, but if people can make a statement by doing 
> something, they may be willing to do that!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Zvi
>
> On Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 11:51 AM, Carlosfelipe Pardo 
> <carlosfpardo at gmail.com <mailto:carlosfpardo at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi,
>
>     I read about this issue (link below) yesterday in Wall Street
>     Journal. Abu Dhabi has a bidding system for "cool" license plates
>     (like single digit numbers, or specific combinations). They use the
>     money to build a hospital for traffic accident victims (of course,
>     could also have been used for other more cause-related measures,
>     such as speed-controling measures, etc).
>
>     Link to story:
>     http://www.autounleashed.com/14-million-license-plate-auctioned-in-uae
>
>     The article I read is more detailed but I didn't find it online
>     (if anyone finds it, would be great to have the link). I know this
>     is not exactly the Shanghai or
>     Singapore plate bidding, but it's related and could be taken into
>     account as a similar version (as long as revenue is properly spent in
>     transport-related projects). From my point of view, this is
>     "cooler" than the Shanghai/Singapore ones. Bangkok has something
>     similar (you pay
>     more for a cool license plate), but I don't know if it's a bid or
>     market-driven, and what they do with the money... would be nice to
>     find out.
>
>     Best regards,
>
>     Carlosfelipe Pardo
>
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