The NZ Transportation Agency has indicated that Auckland motorways will be getting new “high-tech sensors” to relay congestion information to a bunch of signs, which in turn will tell motorists what the likely travel time will be.

This is cool, but I can’t help but wonder if an intelligent GPS network would be more appropriate? If you equipped even 5% of the car population with something like a subsidised Dash GPS, then we’d have congestion information for most/all roads, rather than just one motorway. We could still have signs on the motorways for those without the units to check travel time, but people with in-car units would have a ton more information.

Unrelated, but this reminded me to mention the North Shore City Council’s plan to sell GPS travel time data collected using ratepayer money. Double dipping?

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