Here's a technology I've never seen deployed before: http://metro.kingcounty.gov/tops/bike/parking/index.html#on-demand-elockers
(This is in Seattle- that's a minor city near Tacoma that doesn't even have a single professional basketball team.) The basic idea is that you can rent one of these bike lockers by the hour using a single-purpose credit card sized wallet. Users pay a nickel an hour for time they reserve at the time of rental and twelve cents an hour for overtime. The cards start with $20 of value, which is 400 hours of reserved time, and can be reloaded in various ways. Seems well thought out and affordable, though it would be nice to be able to use the card for other stuff, or use other stuff (NFC cell phone?) to use the system. One issue is that users can't know in advance if a slot will be available, so need a plan B. It will be interesting to see if this succeeds. If so, I would guess that it will eventually be possible to check and reserve space online to solve the Plan B problem, use other devices to transact, and use them as budget love hotels. -- Scott M. Rose West Point Grey, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
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