Parking Meters Get Smarter
Wireless Technology Turns Old-Fashioned Coin-Operated Device Into a
Sophisticated Tool for Catching Scofflaws and Raising Cash
By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 30, 2005; Page B1
Technology is taking much of the fun out of finding a place to park the car.
In Pacific Grove, Calif., parking meters know when a car pulls out of the
spot and quickly reset to zero -- eliminating drivers' little joy of
parking for free on someone else's quarters.
See examples of parking-meter
innovations.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/0,,SB112008647932273412-wcgfanaRACAlCq6aTdEWvysXWoY_20060701,00.html#METER
In Montreal, when cars stay past their time limit, meters send real-time
alerts to an enforcement officer's hand-held device, reducing the number of
people needed to monitor parking spaces -- not to mention drivers' chances
of getting away with violations. Meanwhile, in Aspen, Colo., wireless
"in-car" meters may eliminate the need for curbside parking meters
altogether: They dangle from the rear-view mirror inside the car, ticking
off prepaid time.
These and other innovations are reshaping the parking meter, a device that
dates to 1933, when an Oklahoma inventor named Carl Magee, working with
some colleagues, came up with the coin-operated, single-space mechanical
meter as a means of freeing up parking spaces in downtown Oklahoma City.
Two Arkansas companies have dominated the industry: POM Inc., of
Russellville, which traces its lineage to Mr. Magee and his band of
inventors; and Duncan Parking Technologies Inc., of Harrison.
One of POM's current products, a 2-space meter with smartcard reader,
high-visibility display, and expanded capacity coin vault.
Electronic and digital parking meters arrived in the 1980s and 1990s, but
real change began a few years ago, when municipalities began toying with
meters that regulate a number of spaces at once, including "pay and
display" models that print out receipts for drivers to place on their
dashboards.
Those multispace models solve many of the problems associated with
traditional meters, which are ugly, error-prone, easy to vandalize and only
take coins. Multispace meters are efficient, harder to vandalize -- and
they take credit and debit cards, as well as cash. Parking czars in
municipalities across the country are starting to realize parking meters'
original goals: generating revenue and creating continuous turnover of
parking spaces on city streets.
Now, in cities from New York to Seattle, the door is open to a host of
wireless technologies seeking to improve the parking meter even further.
Chicago and Sacramento, Calif., among others, are equipping enforcement
vehicles with infrared cameras capable of scanning license plates even at
30 miles an hour. Using a global positioning system, the cameras can tell
which individual cars have parked too long in a two-hour parking zone. At a
cost of $75,000 a camera, the system is an expensive upgrade of the old
method of chalking tires and then coming back two hours later to see if the
car has moved.
Parkeon's multi-space & display meter.
The camera system, supplied by Canada's Autovu Technologies, also helps
identify scofflaws and stolen vehicles, by linking to a database of unpaid
tickets and auto thefts. Sacramento bought three cameras in August, and
since then its practice of "booting," or immobilizing, cars with a lot of
unpaid tickets has increased sharply. Revenue is soaring, too. According to
Howard Chan, Sacramento's parking director, Sacramento booted 189 cars and
took in parking revenue of $169,000 for the fiscal year ended in June 2004;
for fiscal 2005, the city expects to boot 805 cars and take in more than
$475,000.
Mr. Chan says his department has located 11 stolen cars since it started
using the camera system in April. "The police are going, 'Holy smoke! What
are you guys doing here?' " Mr. Chan says. The city plans to buy two more
cameras.
In downtown Montreal, more than 400 "pay-by-space" meters, each covering 10
to 15 spaces, are a twist on regular multispace meters. Motorists park,
then go to the meter to type in the parking-space number and pay by card or
coin. These meters, which cost about $9,000 each, identify violators in
real time for enforcement officers carrying hand-held devices: a likeness
of the block emerges on screen and cars parked illegally show up in red.
"My parking agents don't have to check every spot, only the ones in red,"
says Michel Philibert, a manager at the Montreal parking authority. In
winter, the technology allows the city's parking agents to spend more time
reading computer screens inside their warm cars, instead of patrolling the
curbs. Motorists can use any meter in the system, no matter how far from
their car they may be, to purchase more time. Cale Parking Systems USA, a
Clearwater, Fla., unit of Cale Access AB, says people using credit cards
occasionally choose to pay the maximum anyway.
Coral Gables, Fla., recently became one of the first U.S. cities where
drivers can buy parking time using their cellphones. After registering a
phone number, credit card and license-plate number online with Mint
Technology Corp., of Toronto, motorists park, dial 1-888-PAY-MINT and then
enter the lot number to start their "parking session." In addition to the
parking fee, Mint charges drivers a 25-cent surcharge for the service, or
$7 a month for unlimited sessions.
The old method of chalking tires to enforce parking.
In Aspen, drivers pay $50 to get an in-car meter and then load as much as
$200 of parking time on it. The meter hangs from rear-view mirrors, ticking
off the minutes every time it is switched on. In the resort town, which has
5,200 year-round residents, 18,000 "in-car" meters have been sold, says Tim
Ware, Aspen's parking director.
Of course, change sometimes comes too fast. Seeking to discourage
beachgoers from hogging oceanfront parking spaces, Newport Beach, Calif.,
installed meters that communicated with sensors planted in the concrete
that could tell when a car pulled in or out of the spot. If a car didn't
move after an hour, or in some cases a half-hour, the meter wouldn't take
any more coins. Problem solved? No: Residents and even local merchants
complained that wasn't enough time for shopping or surfing, and the meters
came out.
Pacific Grove, Calif., took a different tack. The city got so fed up with
tourists leaving cars in its zoned spaces all day while visiting the
aquarium in neighboring Monterey that in December it installed meters with
a progressive-rate schedule, leased from InnovaPark LLC of Westport, Conn.
Some meters on short-term spaces can be programmed to reject quarters after
20 minutes. Others charge $1 for the first hour and then increase to as
much as $4 for the third hour. Meters reset to zero as soon as a car pulls out.
Write to Christopher Conkey at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112008647932273412,00.html
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