It should not come as a surprise to anyone that four out of every five cars that either enter or leave Britain’s cities during rush hour have only one person in them. So basically everybody likes to go out in their own car. While this speaks well for the economic state of the nation, it does not help traffic or environment. A new generation of road camera which can deduce how many people are in a car is to be tested for the first time so that this phenomenon of single driver cars can be monitored and curbed.
It will initially be used to monitor car-sharing lanes in Leeds, but councils across Britain are said to be interested in using the technology. The government believes encouraging people to share journeys will help combat congestion. It wants councils to look at building more “high-occupancy vehicle” lanes. This basically means that if you have more members in your car, you will be given a special lane that will have lesser traffic. So basically you need not steer your way through too much traffic while rushing for work. This is an incentive not just to encourage people to share journeys, but also is something that reduces loads of pollution.
Enforcing the lanes has previously been a problem. In the US drivers often trick police and cameras with dummies and even large dogs to allow them to use lanes reserved for more than one person. The new cameras are apparently built to combat the cons. Developed at Loughborough University; the new cameras can see how many people are in a car by detecting water and blood content. So basically you will need a couple of water containers and a few packets of blood along with the dolls to cheat the officials. I guess working as a group is easier than that.
The technology could lead to a big increase in the number of car-share lanes on British roads. The inventor of the camera, Professor John Tyrer, believes the camera can be key to reducing congestion as it allows you to automatically count people. That means you can sort out the congestion on the roads. Car-sharing lanes are already in operation in areas of Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and North Somerset. While it has great benefits for traffic, it also helps solve a lot of pollution problem by automatically reducing exhausts on the road. While the new system has a few problems because of flexible work schedules of modern jobs, it still is a fine solution for more than one problem.
