Jaguar Land Rover Wants To Pay You For Reporting Traffic Jams And Potholes

Traffic jams could become less annoying as Jaguar Land Rover has unveiled a new Smart Wallet technology that could pay drivers for information about their commute.

According to the company, they’re testing a new service which would automatically share road condition data – such as traffic congestion and potholes – with navigation providers or local authorities. In exchange for sharing this information, drivers would earn cryptocurrency.

While cryptocurrency hype has died down a bit, JLR says drivers could use their earning to automatically pay tolls and parking fees. Owners could even use the cryptocurrency to pay for charging electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles.

There’s no word on how much drivers could earn, but JLR has teamed up to the IOTA Foundation to “harness ‘distributed ledger’ technologies to make and receive these payments.” The payments would be made without transaction fees and this means more money in driver’s digital wallets.

It remains unclear when or if the service will be launched, but it’s currently undergoing testing at JLR’s software engineering center in Ireland. As part of this test, the technology has been outfitted to several different vehicles including the Jaguar F-Pace and Range Rover Velar.

The service would certainly benefit drivers, but the company also noted it fits with their “Destination Zero strategy which aims to achieve zero emissions, zero accidents and zero congestion.” In particular, Smart Wallet technology could help to reduce congestion as shared data could alert other drivers to take an alternative route to avoid a traffic jam. This would also help to reduce emissions as vehicles wouldn’t be stuck idling in traffic.