Opponents of traffic congestion charges in Auckland have found an unlikely ally in the form of Indian software company Mastek, which developed much of the software used to run the congestion charge scheme that operates in London. Bedraj Tripathy, head of global marketing at the Bombay-based firm, says charging motorists to drive into central Auckland may be putting the cart before the horse since public transport is not sufficiently developed to provide an alternative.

Mastek, which employs 2800 staff and turned over US$130 million (NZ$218 million) last year, worked as a subcontractor to British IT services firm Capita on the London scheme – one of the largest .Net software projects ever undertaken.

It has put its views in a submission to the Transport Ministry, which issued a discussion document earlier this year canvassing congestion pricing as one of the options to solve Auckland’s traffic snarl-up.

As part of its work for Capita, Mastek developed software that triggers text messages to be automatically sent to drivers’ cellphones when they pass monitoring stations placed by the side of the road, advising them of the least congested route to their destination.

Mr Tripathy suggests deploying similar technology in Auckland, improving public transport and ironing out some bottlenecks that prevent traffic bypassing the city centre when moving north and south. One element would be an integrated ticketing system that would let people pay for buses, trains and ferries in one go before starting their journey. Congestion charges could then be introduced, once these measures were in place, he says. "It’s a Catch 22 situation – whether to invest in congestion pricing and reapply that for public transport, or whether to invest in public transport and then introduce congestion pricing. That is a call the Government needs to make."

Mr Tripathy says the challenges faced by every city are unique and Mastek specialises in developing greenfield solutions.

"When it comes to controlling traffic congestion we are one of the strongest players in terms of the knowledge and solutions we have. If the city is interested we would be interested to work with it. If not, maybe it can gain from our experience."