By TheNewspaper.com
New IBM patent covers variable pricing on toll roads.
Motorists driving on toll roads that use congestion pricing methods may soon pay an extra fee to IBM. The computing giant on January 22 secured a patent covering "variable rate toll systems" that charge more or less depending upon factors such as the speed of traffic.
"The present invention relates... to a system and methodology for enabling automatic adjusting of a toll amount in response to detected vehicle traffic," US Patent Number 7,320,430 states.
Essentially, the system described monitors the average speed of every vehicle traveling the length of a tolled segment of the road. When that speed falls below a predetermined level, say 50 MPH, a computerized system increases the toll until the rate is so high that fewer motorists feel it is worth taking the pay lanes, reducing congestion in the toll lanes and increasing it in the untolled lanes. Only when the pay lane average travel speed rises above the predetermined level are tolls reduced to encourage more drivers to use the pay lanes. The system would also take into account speed on non-tolled lanes.
Armed with this patent, the computing giant has legal standing to force existing and future toll roads to either make royalty payments, or mount an expensive courtroom battle. IBM has made no announcement of any intention to enforce its legal right under the new patent.
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5 comments:
dump the adam brown comment, it's spam.
still no honor among thieves... hehehe!
Interesting. It could go both ways I guess. You want to keep traffic moving and charging a market rate will surely do this, but on the other end I doubt the price will fall below some cap. Which in my area (Orange County, CA, 73), the prices are completely insane at $4.75 to travel about 5 miles in peak hours and $4.25 in non-peak. I typically drive the extra 5 miles around the toll section unless the conditions are extreme.
IBM has a billion dollar contract with TxDOT to run the Texas network infrastructure. I believe they call it TFT (Team For Texas). I find it very odd that IBM is now getting into the tolling business. First some jack a$$ outsources in-house jobs to a corporate giant to save a few million dollars (they claim) yet the contract is in the billions. Spend billions to save millions. Now IBM suddenly will profit from toll roads. Who the hell in TxDOT is bumpin uglies with IBM. More of the same...the rich get richer while the poor and middle class foots the bill. The only people u will see in toll lanes are the rich. Who the hell can afford to pay $5.00 to go 7 miles...oh yeah right the rich can. I used to like Perry but we need to get this guy out of office.
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