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Comment by dylan604 | Hacker News Reader

I've heard talks of the toll tag companies wanting to be able to detect occupants in a car so they can properly charge the correct amount of fees when the occupancy changes the amount. I never looked into how that might happen, but I'm guessing Bluetooth would not be a solve here as it's too easy to circumvent if passengers disable bluetooth

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Cameras work well for front occupants. They're already being used to check if commercial drivers are wearing seat belts.

if a toll tag required me to power it and allow it to record video of the interior of my car at all times, then FUCK THAT NONSENSE!!!! even if they had it setup so that the camera was only turned on briefly by a signal as you approached and then turned off again as you passed the gates, that's still a hard no from me.

Uh you're over thinking it. They just have cameras in the toll booths that snap a photo when the car crosses the sensor.

uh, what about the kids sitting in the back rows that can't be seen?

That’s much worse of an automobile usage case than the ones I read about (measuring vehicle travel speeds to improve travel time estimates)!

Occupancy based pricing for vehicles seems too hard to enforce anyway, change the pricing scheme to something more practical IMO

Right now occupancy based pricing involves moving a switch on your toll device to indicate if your car qualifies for the high-occupancy discount (e.g. https://www.e-zpassiag.com/about-e-zpass/e-zpass-flex)

Or (shudder) have more or less than the requisite single phone.

Obviously a soccer mom taking her bus load of kids somewhere would ruin the bluetooth use case. I never did hear more about how they would actually do it. I just met someone randomly at a holiday gathering a couple of years ago that said that was something his company was working on. The conversation just didn't allow for follow up.

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