Thursday, February 4, 2010

The new Congestion Pricing Technology

This first generation of automated traffic is only the dashboard device with communications , GPS and drivwe display. It is used to signal changes into the congestion priced lane and to display a pricing bar. These devices are about to be released into the retail sector. They can listen and talk, mainly telling each other and base stations who, what and where they are. The driver display is simple, but it can display the locations of cars around.

Base stations broadcast intersection light changes, re-broadcast vehicle locations. Base stations send back pricing information, and confirm charges.

There will be an after market to connect dashboard devices to collect turn signal and cruise control data from the car, and send cruise control commands back. Hence, we will see driver controlled road trains almost from the start.

There will be a confluence of forces, metropolitan governments going broke and drivers wanting to cut through traffic congestion.

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