London to Introduce Traffic Congestion Charge

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.

Comments

Britain Sucks.

[YardgnomeUT]

So sad. What used to be a mighty empire is now the land of government run spy cameras, tabloids for newspapers, unfair tolls, and Hugh Grant.

Re:Charge?

[pen]

And a lot of that 60 million comes from people who have never used the bridge, and don't even own or drive a car. Roads should be funded entirely by people who use them.

There is no extra government regulation needed to make mass transit more popular. All you have to do is end subsidies to both cars and mass transit, so that people have a choice whether to invest in cars or not.

This charge is a step in the right direction; It is a user fee, as opposed to a tax that is placed on every person.

(OT) Re:Number Plates NOT License Plates

[plugger]

That depends on your audience. If you were expecting a mainly American audience (like this one), then imo you would be correct to use their dialect word.