[tribe]

Isn't this the point of the gas tax? For every mile you drive, you use more gas. The more gas you use, the more you pay. Tracking which roads people are driving on would also require massive infrastructure investment, and have significant privacy implications.

[choward]

The gas tax doesn't take time (or supply and demand) into account. Driving during rush hour should cost a lot more than driving at 3AM on an empty street. Sure, you use more gas sitting in traffic, but it doesn't make that much of a difference.

[ams6110]

Tesla can solve this. They know when and where the car was driven, and each time it's charged, the charging station can interrogate the car and compute the appropriate congestion surcharge.

[kalleboo]

Singapore is now developing a new congestion charge system based on GPS that will have high granularity. We'll see how that works... http://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/default.aspx?scr=yes&keyword...

[BurningFrog]

Only a little bit, since it doesn't differentiate between crowded and empty roads.

IOW, that price is independent of supply, which makes it useless in changing demand.

I think the infrastructure investments would be very cheap compared to what traffic jams and new highways cost. The privacy issues are real, but I'm OK with them. remember that it will make bad traffic a weird memory!