Are TfL Really Expecting Taxis To Carry A Trackable Chip, To Allegedly Join The Fight Against Potholes ???

We all know they are the scourge of roads and motorists, with councils left facing millions of pounds in repair bills every year.

But special monitoring technology has been developed at the University of South Wales (USW) which could help to find potholes before they get worse.

It works through a dashboard device that collects real-time data.

While sat-navs give the driver a profile of the road ahead, this small device records the profile of the road surface.

If a vehicle is travelling the same route every day, data it gathers can highlight potential problem areas.

Trials have already been carried out with taxis and buses operated by Transport for London, plus highway maintenance vehicles in Northern Ireland and delivery cars working for Bristol Community Meals.

Councils are to trial a new system of repairing the pot holes using recycled plastic. 

• Meltable bags of plastic used in council trial

The material is melted and placed over the pothole

The system collects details of the smallest change in road vibrations, particularly potholes, feeding them into a real-time map.

"The key problem councils have is knowing exactly where new problems form on the roads," said the man behind the device, Kevin Lee, managing director of Cardiff-based Mobilized Construction and is being supported to develop the system by USW's Centre of Excellence in Mobile and Emerging Technologies (CEMET).

He said the system solved the three main problems caused by failing roads: the fall in safety standards for motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians, the extra financial impact of road repairs and the environmental and time cost that road closures cause.

TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT:

Be honest, with all that’s been happening with TfL over the last few years, would you put a chip on your Taxi that would tell TfL exactly where and when your vehicle has been and where it is now?

Would you trust TfL with this data?

Is this just another con from TfL to close more roads for extended unnecessarily long  repairs, causing even more congestion and pollution ?

I know one Taxi that won’t, under any circumstances be sporting a TfL GPS chip.