France to fund research for electronic tolls, er, to fight congestion at toll booths
If you happen to drive on toll road with some regularity, you've probably noticed that the electronic payment systems that allow drivers to pass through without stopping to insert a card or cash are becoming more common. The good news is that these E-Z-pay options help make toll plazas a bit more green (less congestion than before) and now the French government, which is actively seeking ways to reduce pollution, has decided to fund research into new automatic toll payment systems. The goal is to eliminate manual toll booths to reduce both congestion and pollution. One solution might be to install cameras that identify car registration plates. This system is in use in London in the UK and on Highway 407 in Ontario, Canada. This would mean each driver/car would not need to buy into a RFID system (like TollTag, TeleTac and E-ZPass use).
[Source: Le Blog Auto]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mike Z 11:27AM (1/09/2009)
I bet the toll takers are unionized and will kill the measure.
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Yggdrasilly 12:37PM (1/09/2009)
And we've had electronic toll lanes in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas for the better part of a decade.
Nice to see that Canada and France are finally catching up with us flyover people!
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paulwesterberg 12:55PM (1/09/2009)
Tolls are dumb. If you need more road revenue then just raise the gas tax 5 cents. If you want less congestion then use gas tax money to improve efficiency or lower the cost of public transit.
Then you dont need to pay for:
toll construction
toll booth workers
radio transpondors/recievers/driver database.
drivers dont need to register their vehicle
drivers dont need to deal with extra congestion of toll booths that force us to slow down, speed up, merge, idle, etc.
But having automated tolls does make it easier to track people, but if you want to do that then just use cell phones.
Tolls are dumb, even electronic tolls are dumb.(unless you are rich, then tolls keep those people from using your road.)
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dhofmann 2:44PM (1/09/2009)
One problem with gas taxes is they exempt electric cars and they reduce the burden of hybrid owners to pay for their fair share of road wear and traffic congestion.
Another problem is that gas taxes can't do time-of-day variable tolling to reduce congestion.
Gas taxes are useful for limiting pollution, but they aren't so useful in limiting congestion or road wear.
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John Rowell 3:36PM (1/09/2009)
It should be very easy and cheap to just stick an RFID tag on the undercarriage of every car, so when the car rolls over a sensor under the road the tag is scanned.
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