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London to Introduce Traffic Congestion Charge

Posted by michael on from the click-whirr-click-whirr-click-whirr dept.

Vivek writes "BBC is reporting that Londoners will have to pay a 5 pound "Congestion Charge" starting Feb 17. According to this Times of India article, an Indian software firm called Mastek developed the .NET based software to implement the plan. In the absence of toll booths, it reportedly uses character recognition from 700 surveillance cameras to identify defaulting license plates." See our previous story for background.

4 of 551 comments (clear)

  1. 5 pounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    For those not in the know, thats 5 pounds of money. Or, for the metrically inclined, its about 2.3 kilos of money. This roughly equates to a metric ass-load.

  2. Re:Time to..... by homer_ca · · Score: 5, Funny

    It doesn't have to fool a human inspector, just an OCR algorithm working on a fuzzy video feed. Just print random license plate numbers on paper in the same font and hold it up in your back window when you pass a camera. You don't even have to drive. Just hold up the papers while you walk by a camera. Might as well see how their .NET servers stand up to a good crap-flooding.

  3. Exemptions by micromoog · · Score: 4, Funny

    One of the exemptions is for "Vehicles with 9 or more seats". Can't wait to see the new breed of monster SUV's that suddenly become popular in central London . . .

  4. Microsoft, eh? by labratuk · · Score: 4, Funny
    an Indian software firm called Mastek developed the .NET based software to implement the plan.

    So if you see people walking around London with big signs, something along the lines of
    ...%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090...
    you'll know what they're trying to do.
    --
    Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.