Re:$40 road tolls offer insight into commuter psychology
by thatcat on Thursday December 07, 2017 @11:53AM
(#15871642)
The tech isn't the problem, it's that the avalibility distribution that is imposed on roads is the same as the income distribution. In a way it creates the same problems as removing net neutrality.
If you did that with roads, what's stopping the upper income distribution from excluding everyone else from entire cities? A gated community concept might scale to an entire upperclass city with a private airport, hostpital, and 1000$ entry fee to keep out the poor. This might even effectively reduce overall costs for the municipality since homeless and property crime would be greatly reduced.
On the other hand if other currency is used, it makes everyone easily trackable.
I think the dumb pipes model still has some advantages.
Creating a whole new kind of currency with its own special rules is a huge undertaking. Not to mention the ongoing pain-in-the ass cost to every citizen when they have to carry around and think about a new special kind of money that can only be used for one thing.