Microsoft predicts ‘pay as you-go’ solution to congestion

Congestion pricing is the solution to inner city traffic gridlock, according to Microsoft’s chief economist, Michael Schwarz. Speaking at the IBTTA’s Annual Technology Summit in Orlando, Florida last week, Schwarz said “traffic will be a thing of the past”, citing the difference between the traffic volumes in the free use and managed lanes as evidence. He also highlighted Singapore’s plans to have satellite tolling on all cars in 2020 and noted that almost all new cars are already fitted with SIM car
April 9, 2019 Read time: 2 mins

Congestion pricing is the solution to inner city traffic gridlock, according to 2214 Microsoft’s chief economist, Michael Schwarz.

Speaking at the 63 IBTTA’s Annual Technology Summit in Orlando, Florida last week, Schwarz said “traffic will be a thing of the past”, citing the difference between the traffic volumes in the free use and managed lanes as evidence.

He also highlighted Singapore’s plans to have satellite tolling on all cars in 2020 and noted that almost all new cars are already fitted with SIM cards and GPS adding: “The cost of the technology is nothing.”

Furthermore, as satellite technology allows tolling and congestion pricing to be levied on any and all roads, he predicted that instead of paying one large charge when entering a city or corridor, “we will be paying a lot of congestion charges for each journey”.

He said that without congestion pricing, self-driving cars would cause gridlock and predicted that the introduction of such charging will be made more palatable by a new generation of car-pooling platforms.

“Technology is getting better at finding the ideal [car-pooling] partner,” he said. “Splitting the congestion charge three ways makes it more affordable.”

There will be a full report from the IBTTA conference in the May-June edition of ITS International

Charging, Tolling & RUC

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Lyft, Uber have mixed impact on San Fran mobility
    May 14, 2018
    The extent to which ride-hailing has become a real force in the mobility landscape of San Francisco is great for consumers – but there are downsides, a report finds. Andrew Stone takes a look. Uber and Lyft, the two major ride-hailing platforms in San Francisco, are out-competing local cab firms in many ways - and are firmly established as a significant part of the daily mobility mix there, a recent study reveals. Researchers mined publicly-available data derived from the application programming interface
    Read More
  • EVs & smart cities: Tritium keeps things moving
    December 3, 2018
    Electric vehicles are widely expected to play a major role in the smarter, cleaner cities of the future. Paul Sernia explains why – and looks at the place of ultra-rapid chargers as part of a versatile public infrastructure Electric vehicles (EVs) are widely expected to play a major role in the smarter, cleaner cities of the future. With no dirty tailpipe, EVs can help improve the polluted air of inner cities. And when deployed as widely shared assets – through car clubs, ride-sharing services and taxi
    Read More
  • Road usage charge pilot under way
    November 22, 2012
    The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is undertaking a pilot project to test the next generation of a road usage charge system designed to address funding gaps caused by a rise in fuel efficiency and a decline in gas tax revenue. Around forty volunteers have begun testing the new system, where, instead of paying the gas tax, automatically added at the pump, pilot participants will pay a per mile charge based on the number of miles they drive. The charge is roughly equal to the amount of gas tax the
    Read More
  • O2 and European Space Agency explore C/AV solutions
    June 28, 2019
    O2 and the European Space Agency are working together to support a project aimed at developing connectivity solutions for connected and autonomous vehicles (C/AVs) in the UK. O2 says Project Darwin will seek to test new technology and solutions involving 5G and satellite communications over the next four years. Catherine Mealing-Jones, director of growth at the UK Space Agency, says: “AVs need robust, high-speed mobile data connections to operate effectively. Building the technology to link them to tele
    Read More

Highlighted Content