Ken Munn

London

Restoring common sense

Let's see - what's this going to need?

1. A GPS receiver in every vehicle with enough storage to record exact time and route co-orodinates for long journeys
2. A transmitter in every vehicle that can be polled to upload accumulated GPS data
3. A national network of roadside receivers to poll and receive downloaded data from passing vehicles.
4. A national network to relay that data to a central processing site
5. A central processing site with terabytes of storage and teraflops of processing power
6. A billing and payment system
7. An enforcement system.
8. Bullet proof security at every point - anti-hack, anti-fraud, anti-vandalism
9. A ship load of high value banknotes to pay for it all
10. A creative genius to spin the reasons for failure.

Not saying it's impossible, and the IT industry certainly won't say that because it can see a major pay-day coming over the horizon, but surely there are easier ways of skinning this cat.

Just tax fuel more heavily, so that those who drive furthest, or on more congested roads (=poorer fuel consumption) pay more. Oh and that would incentivise people to buy more economic cars as well, cutting down pollution.