Creepy and Cool at the Same Time

Felix Salmon posts a bit that didn't make it into his article in Wired. It's about a company named Skymeter.

The idea behind Skymeter is that they use what they call financial-grade GPS: devices in your car which are much more accurate than the GPS devices found in navigation devices or cellphones. They can tell where you are to within a few centimeters, and once you can do that, all manner of possibilities open up in terms of charging not just to get into a city center, but rather to charge by the mile or by the minute on specific streets. Raise prices where congestion is worst, keep them low where it isn’t a problem, and solve lots of other problems at the same time — like easy charging for parking (you just park your car on the side of the road and pay for however long it’s parked there) and for pay-by-the-mile insurance. Or transform the economics of something like Zipcar, which currently just charges by the hour even when charging by a combination of hours and miles would make more economic sense.

Presumably tow trucks would be given these coordinates to identify people who've left their car at a given coordinate too long.

The possibilities are pretty startling - and I certainly like the idea of a world without parking meters - but I have to wonder about a system that essentially turns your parking fees into a monthly bill.

Insurance companies are using a similar technology now - pay as you go kind of insurance, with the idea that you pay for a more accurate representation of your driving habits (that hopefully works in your favor). Some company in Israel has built software that grades your driving based on how you accelerate, corner and brake. As an opt in kind of product, this allows lower risk drivers to self identify and receive lower rates. It also allows a company to screen out high risk drivers a lot easier - with higher premiums.

Makes you wonder.