RFID Goes Down the Tube in the UK; GPS Useless

Get it? Down the tubes? In this case, going down the tubes is a good thing. The Tube of course is what Brits call their subway or underground. Underground is GPS-unfriendly. It can be a little people-unfriendly, too.

Turns out, the underground isn't all that friendly to Tubular technicians either. They get down there and don't know exactly where they are, nor does anyone else. So Voila, RFID to the rescue. (Voila... probably not appropriate. That's France, oui?)

Here's a piece of the story:

Tube Lines, the tube maintenance company for London Underground, is halfway through a trial of radio frequency identification technology to help engineers pinpoint their exact location when working in the capital's network of tunnels.