The Mail on Sunday has a very interesting article that if implemented in Britain would make the London and Manchester congestion charges obsolete.

The article is all about how Audi has created a new in-car technology that "speaks" to upcoming traffic lights and checks and displays the speed to get you through on green.

The system is called Travolution and Audi reckon it will cost about £80 to install in each Audi, as an option by 2012.

Of course putting transmitters into traffic lights would also be needed.

The town where the pilot is running is Audi’s hometown of Ingolstadt.

And putting transmitters into the traffic lights has enabled them to communicate with each other to gauge when to change based on traffic volumes.

The town found that overall motorists saved as much as 185,000 gallons of fuel in a year. Plus the environment had 1,200 tons less CO2 emissions.

And if you look at the effect of the London charging scheme on congestion…

It seems that this sort of technology would actually be more effective and save fuel by avoiding the constant stop and start as cars go through traffic lights.

Crucially it doesn’t need a vast army of workers to process and chase the penalties a charging scheme would produce. Or the massive infrastructure required to pay the charge in the first place. It also wouldn’t require vast amounts of signage or roads to be blocked off.

It also means that everyone who visits Manchester won’t be taxed. And traffic will run more easily.

What do you think?

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