Germany to Yank Truck Toll System Deal

If you think your project is late and costs too much, have a look at this : http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Germany-Truck-Toll.html

"FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- Germany's ambitious project to collect truck tolls using satellite technology stalled Tuesday when the government announced it would cancel its contract with a consortium of top companies involved in the effort because the project had had fallen months behind schedule and cost millions in lost revenue."

Guy Eschemann
Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Maybe it will give the UK government pause for thought before attempting to monitor all road use and bill for it in a similar way.

Simon Lucy
Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Hey, wasn't that a high profile Sun deal http://de.sun.com/SunPR/Pressemitteilungen/2003/PM03_45.html ? *grins* *ducks*

OK, sorry about that. Let me stress that in most cases these failiures have very,very little to do with technology choices made.

Just me (Sir to you)
Wednesday, February 18, 2004

I'm just guessing, but wouldn't part of the problem be that GPS might only resolve within, what, 10m or so? So that truck /might/ be on the Autobahn or it might be on the Landstrasse that runs alongside. Or maybe underneath. It always did sound like a pretty odd idea to me.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Anytime a government gets involved in a large project there are huge cost overruns because nobody of consequence is held accountable when it happens. Haliburton has been caught cheating several times recently and much of the construction work going on in Iraq and Afghanistan is way over budget.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

> Anytime a government gets involved in a large project there are huge cost overruns ...

The reason this happens is that there are scores of greedy outsourcer firms like Accenture and their buddies who are geared to do nothing but suck money out of taxpayer revenue.

This includes sucking up to the poorly paid government staffers responsible for the projects and convincing them their dealing with really capable firms.

Quite sick really.

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

.. they're dealing ...

Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Sun lost the contract to IBM. Unfortunately I can't provide a source, but the decision to give the contract to IBM was allegedly taken on the golf course

John Webber
Friday, February 20, 2004

  Recent Topics

  Fog Creek Home