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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.

3 of 551 comments (clear)

  1. Tubes already crowded by Neil+Watson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I thought the tubes (subway) were already over crowded in London? Shouldn't they increase the capacity of public transit before they force people to use it?

    --
    UNIX/Linux Consulting
  2. interesting "alternative use" by firehousefive · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Disregarding the various arguments for and against the "congestion zone" and its implementation for the purposes of decreasing traffic... there's an interesting alternate purpose, apparently. This weekend's Observer describes the dual-use, not only to reduce congestion but also apparently to "protect the city from terrorist attack". Seems to me such a system generates way too much information to be able to "protect" in anything close to real-time.

  3. The problem is... by girl_geek_antinomy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a *known* failure in the system whereby it can't recogise special font plates (only in the process of being made illegal), small motorcycle number plates (even though they're included in the scheme) and it's more than likely that mud, or salt, or cunningly placed black bolts, can make the system mis-fire and log a different number plate to the one you're carrying. There's no real system for ambiguous plates to be checked by hand.

    Add in a real problem in the UK with second hand cars still being registered to their previous owners (the new owner is responsible for re-registration, and many don't because it means parking and speeding fines don't reach them) and you have One Hell of a Problem.

    I expect civil disobedience.

    The technology may be ever so good (though I somehow doubt even that) but it'll be the human element that'll scupper it...