Avis supports e-toll, sees positive impact

DJ... said:
But as we've addressed before, not an analogous comparison from an economic perspective, so carries little value within the context...
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I still think it is a decent solution, but there might well be better ones. Demanding it be added to the fuel levy so that those of us in the WC also has to pay, well, I'm sure you can understand that we don't want that.
 
What's that sucking sound?

It's Avis' campaign strategy for government contracts.


Fvck You AVIS
 
JStrike said:
I still think it is a decent solution, but there might well be better ones. Demanding it be added to the fuel levy so that those of us in the WC also has to pay, well, I'm sure you can understand that we don't want that.
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We didn't want e-tolls. This government compromises everyone somewhat equally...
 
Paul Hjul said:
I've given some thought to the profiting off e-tolls problem that a lot of businesses could be faced with conundrum. The e-tolling system works on a usage basis BUT has caps now if you are metering your charges on the same usage basis a problem is introduced.

Some businesses will simply build the monthly load into the input costs and distribute accordingly but many businesses simply don't work that way and will need to pass on the costs which the billing structure doesn't conveniently allow for: When charging for disbursements where the AA tariff applies and tolls are added you will end up with a situation where the invoice would be bizarre if you have to redistribute the discounts and caps to your clients. I see a major problem for Avis and others because the e-tags will tell them that a vehicle as leased by person X has incurred millage Z unless that car hits the caps for the month but there is no guarantee that that will happen and there isn't full occupancy of vehicles so you cannot take the monthly cap and divide it down conveniently to a daily rate.

Basically it really does make business sense and doesn't overly offend fairness to the customer for the charge to be passed on in toto without the bulk discounts etc ... However this profiting on an evil does raise moral questions.

In my view this money should be put towards initiatives to hold SANRAL etc ... accountable - this is a moral statement and not one I advocate imposing on others - if the rental companies and so on however adopt such a policy of identifying profits from etolling and publicly pay this over to the opposition to tolling then the threat of a big wallop continues.


[This isn't a unique problem and frequently a business would profit from bulk discount structures etc ... Business use of a private vehicle lends itself to abuse and one of the reasons I advocate enterprises provide staff with company owned mobile communications devices or adopt a sensible BYOD policy comes from this]
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Avis clearly have access to the billable amounts hence why they invoice in two days. Their costs are not variable depending on mileage, so to not pass on the discount is absurd, no matter how you look at it. They claim that their not passing on of discounts is due to additional overheads. Such overheads are not tied in to mileage. It's insulting of them to assume that people cannot deduce this for themselves. They also know the average mileage on these roads, so can very easily calculate a percentage built in to the cost to account for this, even with headroom...
 
the big "discount" is the cap - the charging on the non-etagged tariff is for me a separate question - and not one which I disagree with you on from a moral point of view
 
I agree with Paul that bottom line benefits from e-tolling are morally vexing, and certainly a bad move PR-wise. It's a nettlesome issue.

Is it not possible, even likely, that SANRAL has special provisions for car rental operators when it comes to both the rates and the reporting requirements? This will be evident only in the detailed contracts, not in the enabling legislation. Shortly after Congestion Charges were introduced in London I rented a car from Hertz and drove around London as I normally do - I never knew one had to stop at a roadside booth and buy a ticket. Some months later I received a Final Demand from the City of London, which included a L60 admin fee in addition to the regular "congestion charge". Clearly there was a requirement on car rental companies to report driver details to the City. Could something like this obtain here, along with all sorts of other provisions we can only guess at?
 
Well if you charge the non e tag rate to customers and only pay the etag rate to SANRAL then you are complicit in the whole etag scandal. "To recover costs" please what 2/3 more employees and some software, probably won't even cost you R500k a year yet I'm sure you will be make a couple mil from it
 
Arthur said:
This just appeared on the Avis website.
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While I found it unlikely that Avis would support etrolling as a funding mechanism, and this clarification is certainly very welcome, I stand by my previous posts since I don't think that a change in legislation automatically translates into burdening consumers with any profit making company's implementation and compliance costs related to new laws.
 
http://www.bus-ex.com/article/avis-south-africa - fleet size of 21000 cars - say 20% are in Gauteng (reasonable assumption unless you know better) x R1000 in toll fees per annum per vehicle (R80 in toll fees per month - reasonable?) = R4.2m. Unless you know better in which case do please share :)
 
The e-tag is only active when attached to the vehicles windscreen and holds no value to a customer when removed from the vehicle. Customers are cautioned that further charges will be applied should a vehicle be returned without an e-tag.
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lol

also probably the reason they are charging the standard tariff because they know etolling isn't going to properly work with the tags and there is probably a fear of stating the charge on the tagged basis in case they get invoices from SANRAL later on and the customer says but I paid on the contract terms and now am going to pay for this amount what our contract says
 
j4ck455 said:
I don't think that a change in legislation automatically translates into burdening consumers with any profit making company's implementation and compliance costs related to new laws.
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At the end of the day every single cost is borne by consumers. It matters not a jot whether it's a government cost, a profit-making company's cost, or any other cost. The cost is always borne by the end-of-chain. That's the way the universe works. When the government imposes additional costs on me, I have to raise prices just to stay in the same place. The same goes for Avis or anyone else. This principle does not upset me, though the unjust state-imposed burden certainly does. Of course I'd be peeved if Avis or anyone else used e-tolling to make additional profits. But we need to know a lot more than we do now to reach that conclusion if we are to avoid being prejudiced.
 
JStrike said:
Are you trying to insult me??
All I am saying is that it is perfectly valid method of implementing a User Pays principle, and it works amazing well in other places that I spend time in (They have a fuel levy, and Telepass, which is exactly the same as us)
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your continued support for e-tolling is bound to gain you lots of insults, in various threads over at least the past year the flaws of e-tolling have been highlighted on numerous occasions. for some one that isn't even resident in Gauteng I find your posts disingenuous at best and leave me to believe that you are if not a SANRAL employee then you are someone that is involved with e-tolling in some form or another.

Whilst I haven't travelled in France I have travelled the highways of Italy and to compare Telepass with the GFIP e-tolling system is also disingenuous as the 2 systems are very different.
 
I still don't get why they couldn't get a etag, register it and pay the 450 a month instead of ripping their customers off.

JStrike said:
Are you trying to insult me??
All I am saying is that it is perfectly valid method of implementing a User Pays principle, and it works amazing well in other places that I spend time in (They have a fuel levy, and Telepass, which is exactly the same as us)
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We get that you went to Italy. Congratulations and all that.

Now click on the Google search button on top and type in JStrike Italy.

Enjoy.
 
Arthur said:
At the end of the day every single cost is borne by consumers. It matters not a jot whether it's a government cost, a profit-making company's cost, or any other cost. The cost is always borne by the end-of-chain. That's the way the universe works. When the government imposes additional costs on me, I have to raise prices just to stay in the same place. The same goes for Avis or anyone else.
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That is a sweeping generalisation and is definitely not true of every profit making company: there are plenty of companies that survive by absorbing costs that their competitors prefer to pass on to consumers.
 
Crowley said:
I still don't get why they couldn't get a etag, register it and pay the 450 a month instead of ripping their customers off.
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I suspect you are asking why the fleet rental companies don't take the monthly amount incorporate that cost into the overall rental proposition. The biggest problem is that the assumption would have to be made that e-tags will always work, people won't destroy the tags and the volume of usage of vehicles on GFIP across the fleet will reach the caps.

Moreover as I understand the tolling legislation in question that approach would actually be illegal :(
 
Crowley said:
I still don't get why they couldn't get a etag, register it and pay the 450 a month instead of ripping their customers off.



We get that you went to Italy. Congratulations and all that.

Now click on the Google search button on top and type in JStrike Italy.

Enjoy.
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That is an odd thing to do. The reason I brought them up is I spend a fair bit of time there, and they have something that is exactly like e-tolls. And it is great.
Instead you try make it out as if I'm bragging about some holiday. I assume it is to try belittle me, and devalue my point I was making
 
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