Claimed to be the first purpose-built televillage in the world, the 4.5 acre complex nestles in the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park in Wales, at Crickhowell about 20 miles north of Cardiff. Unlike the rest of the British housing market there is no shortage of potential buyers. The backers say more than 300 people have already inquired about moving in.

The idea for the televillage came from Ashley Dobbs, chairman of the UK Telecottage Association, who believes many people who work with computers (whether employees or self-employed) will live next to their place of work in the 21st century.

On the Welsh site, all the home owners will be able to either rent or buy studio space and save valuable time by not commuting to a conventional office. All the studios and houses are also being linked by an internal fibre-optic cable network. So for no extra charge everyone will be able to get in touch with their office and anyone else in the village by phone, fax or e-mail.

There will also be a central telecottage where lone workers can meet and share ideas, rather than continuing to work in isolation. Dobbs, who lives in a self-styled “telehamlet” in Herefordshire, claims the homes will appeal mostly to self-employed people who now work at home and feel cut off from the rest of the working community.

Although there are several other towns around the world where large numbers of teleworkers routinely communicate via e-mail, the Crickhowell site is believed to be the first purpose-built complex.

However, in November next year, the Austrian authorities are to install
the world’s first electronic toll system which does not slow traffic on
an autobahn near Salzburg. This system is due to begin commercial operation
only three months later.

Electronic toll systems are already in use on highways in France and
Italy, and on the bridge over the River Thames at Dartford. But to use these
systems, motorists must have an account and be issued with an electronic
tag. At Dartford, motorists have to stop for the tag to be read by a roadside
sensor. Information gathered by the sensor is stored on a computer, and
the toll is debited from the motorist’s account. Because these ‘read-only’
systems record the use of a road by a particular car, they raise fears of
Big Brother monitoring the movement of motorists.

In Austria motorists will not have to stop or slow down at a ‘toll plaza’
– the expanse of concrete in front of toll booths. This means that the new
toll system will fit into a smaller space than conventional ones. Anotehr
advantage is that it can be installed on motorways which were not originally
designed to be toll roads.

In the Austrian system, motorists will buy a smart card, which they
will insert into a small pouch on their car’s windscreen before they use
the autobahn. Control boxes on gantries above the highway will read the
information on the smart card with microwaves to make sure it is valid,
debit the toll from the amount of credit stored on the card, and then write
the amount of credit remaining on the card when the vehicle leaves the highway.

A particular vehicle’s use of the toll road will not be recorded on
a computer, and cars will not have to slow down for the card to be read.
Each transaction will be completed while the vehicle travels at speeds of
up to 140 kilometres per hour, and drivers will not be able to escape detection
by weaving from lane to lane.

Video cameras on the overhead gantries will film every vehicle using
the road. If a car does not have a valid smart card, or if the transaction
is unsuccessful, the vehicle’s registration number will be recorded in a
roadside computer and the owner sent an invoice for the toll.

The system to be used in Austria was developed by Saab-Scania Combitech,
part of the Swedish car and aircraft manufacturer. The company has been
testing the technology in Gothenburg for the past 12 months, and hopes to
install it on roads around Stockholm over the next few years. Ove Salamonsson,
Saab-Scania Combitech’s marketing manager, says that as the new technology
eliminates the need for toll plazas, there will be less congestion on the
highway.

Peter Hills, head of the Transport Operations Research Group at the
University of Newcastle upon Tyne and an adviser on toll systems to the
British Department of Transport, believes ‘read-write’ toll systems like
the Austrian one will be a common feature on many major highways within
ten years. They have numerous advantages in addition to protecting drivers’
anonymity, he claims, including the potential to use the same smart card
to pay for other services, such as petrol, public transport and parking.

The high-speed roadside-to-vehicle communications link could be used
to give drivers up-to-date traffic bulletins, local weather forecasts, and
information on the availability of parking spaces.

Highway authorities throughout the world are showing increasing interest
in installing electronic toll systems. The German transport ministry plans
to assess 19 different read-write toll systems over the next few months,
with the aim of installing the first commercial system by 1997.