finally, here come the interesting muni wi-fi apps http://www.govtech.net/magazine/sup_story.php? id=99663&magid=17&issue=6:2006
Wi-Fi Meters June 2006 By David Raths Hoping to gain efficiencies in police, utility and maintenance efforts, cities from Portland, Ore., to Philadelphia are planning wireless networks, which will also offer untethered Internet access to citizens. One especially promising area is parking, where the wireless network movement is joining a new generation of high-tech meters to improve data gathering and increase revenue. "We see parking as an important part of the public-service tier of services a Wi-Fi network could improve, along with traffic, maintenance and field inspectors," said Houston CIO Richard Lewis, adding that this summer, Houston will become the first major U.S. city to manage its parking meters over a wireless network. During the past decade, Lewis said, the city's parking-meter systems had not kept pace with growth in the downtown area, which included new sports arenas and a convention center hotel. "We had all these major investments in downtown, but we didn't have enough parking, and we didn't have parking meters that could take credit cards," he said. "So we began to look at systems that took credit cards and had pay-and-display technology." Seven vendors responded to the RFP, which was issued in 2004, said Liliana Rambo, assistant director of the city's Department of Parking Management, describing the parking system as a turnkey system the city will be solely responsible for operating. The software will do instant credit card approval online, and the city's back-office operations will handle all credit card processing. The City Council approved a $15 million deal with Affiliated Computer Services in early April 2006 for a network of 1,500 multiple-space meters -- 750 of which will be installed this summer -- to handle 2,300 downtown parking spaces. The other 750 will be deployed over the next five years. The meters will be attached to a 60-node mesh network built by the city, said Rambo. The city's wireless network promises several benefits. First, she said, the city will save money by spending $300,000 to build its own network rather than paying a private vendor $125,000 per year for access to its network. "Within three years we will have paid less, and we will own the network," she said. Currently the city only becomes aware of broken meters when citizens call to complain. This will change with the wireless network. "City parking officials will get alarms if there's a problem with a meter, so they're not going to be down as much," Rambo said. Older meters must be emptied of cash on a set schedule whether they're full or not. With the new system, an alarm will be sent to the back office when meters reach a certain threshold to alert an enforcement officer to empty it. The new parking system can also work with handheld devices that alert meter readers when a meter has expired, although Rambo said she hasn't yet chosen that option because she thought it would be taking on too many changes simultaneously. The system also allows users to pay via cell phone, but Rambo said Houston will gradually scale up to that feature. During the selection process, the city invited all seven vendors to set up meters in seven blocks north of Houston's downtown area, and linked them to a test Wi-Fi network for five to six weeks. As city staff assessed each system's technical merits, downtown management district staff members interviewed people as they paid for parking using the test meters. Those customer satisfaction reports counted for 20 points of a 100-point rating system that also included technical performance, cost, the vendors' experiences, and operation and maintenance. "That's the first time I've ever had that type of public input on a government technology acquisition process," Lewis said. City Shifts Gears As vendor evaluations proceeded in 2005, city officials changed their thinking about how to achieve a citywide wireless network. They were inspired by a deal Philadelphia negotiated with Atlanta-based EarthLink Inc., to build a wireless network covering 135 square miles by spring 2007. EarthLink will pay Philadelphia $300,000 per year, as well as 1 percent of revenue for the rights to place antennas on city- owned light poles. The initial idea in Houston was for the city to build a Wi-Fi network for parking, and then gradually expand it for other purposes, Lewis explained. "But when Philadelphia induced EarthLink to make an investment and build a network," he said, "we saw that as an opportunity to build a citywide broadband network without using our balance sheet." Now Houston has an RFP draft on its Web site for private financing of a citywide Wi-Fi network similar to the Wireless Philadelphia project. "Our intention is to spend the $300,000 to build the parking Wi-Fi network," Lewis said. "That's about what it would cost to buy the capacity from a commercial carrier anyway, so I thought it was a no- brainer. Then if we go forward on the larger project with a private party, we'll lease the network to that private party as they scale up." Being the first large U.S. city to connect parking meters to a wireless network is something of an adventure, Rambo said. "As with all big projects, I'm sure there'll be hiccups, but the IT team has been extremely involved from the beginning, and they are very knowledgeable. We're making sure Houstonians have a 21st-century parking experience so they won't have to be hunting for quarters in order to park." Wireless at the Beach If Houston becomes the first big U.S. city to experiment with monitoring its parking meters via wireless network, it still may be beaten to the punch by a much smaller Florida city. Cocoa Beach, a tourist destination of about 12,800 people on Florida's central east coast, purchased a 6-square-mile mesh network from MeshNetworks and Scientel America Inc., in 2004 for use by its police and public works departments. The city is installing 650 new "intelligent" parking meters, and has a test zone with 40 of those meters attached to the wireless network, said Charles Holland, the city's assistant finance director. "We have been led to believe that the network will enable us to monitor meters for repairs in real time," he said, "and fix them so we won't have irate citizens complaining that they got a ticket for parking at a broken meter." With sensor technology and software from Bannockburn, Ill.,-based MeterTek LLC, the meters from POM Inc., of Russellville, Ark., can send messages to meter readers, alerting them of violations so the city can save money by patrolling more efficiently, Holland said. The sensors can also signal the meters to reset their clocks once a car pulls away from the curb, so a new car can't use time remaining from the previous meter usage. A pay-by-cell phone feature is also in the works. The system is still being tested and a project timeline is difficult to estimate, Holland said. "We're still waiting to see how this is going to work in real life," he cautioned. "I'm sure the system is going to have to be tweaked." Another issue Cocoa Beach faces is damage to its wireless network during hurricanes, which has already happened twice, including during Hurricane Wilma in 2005. "That's a downside in this part of the country," Holland said, but he added that the city keeps finding new uses for its wireless network. "In a few years, we'll probably be using it in ways we haven't even thought of yet." Coral Gables Calling While some officials are enthusiastic about linking parking meters to city-run wireless networks, others aren't quite so enthusiastic. "I think putting parking meters on a wireless network could create a number of issues or problems," said William Carlson, parking director for Coral Gables, Fla. "As technical as a plan like that would be, I would not wish to enter into it." Carlson said network security is one area that concerns him, as well as the potential management and maintenance headaches the network could create for his staff. Yet Carlson is no Luddite who fears technological change. His Miami suburb has drawn a considerable amount of publicity for being the first city in the country to deploy a system that allows citizens to pay for parking via cell phone. In 2005, Coral Gables partnered with Toronto-based Mint Inc., a company that provides electronic payment systems on a cell phone- based system. Those parking in Coral Gables first register with Mint, using a credit card number, license plate number, cell phone and e- mail information. Registered drivers who park on the street or in a lot that offers the wireless payment option simply call the telephone number posted on the meter from a cell phone to log in and start the parking session. They call again when they return to end the session. The software calculates the parking charges based on the elapsed time and adds a 25-cent transaction fee. A sticker on the car's rear bumper identifies to parking officials that the car is enrolled in the wireless service, and the officials can use their handheld devices to verify that the vehicle is engaged in a parking session. Carlson considers the experiment a great success so far. "We started in March 2005 and already have close to 4,000 users," he said. "We are gaining more than 300 subscribers a month." The system originated in Sweden and is used in Toronto and Vancouver, Canada. Carlson said Coral Gables had to "invent" how it would be deployed in the United States. First the public had to be informed of how to subscribe. "In Sweden they put up lots of signage, which was unacceptable here because it would be an aesthetic nightmare," he said. "We put decals with subscription information on the housing of the meters, and it has worked out quite well." The cost to the city is minimal compared to purchasing pay-and- display terminals, which can run from $9,000 to $11,000 each, Carlson noted. "We pay just $350 per handheld unit for the readers, and you add in less than $600 per year per unit for a service fee," he added. "We have found it very inexpensive." Perhaps what most appealed to Coral Gables, Carlson continued, was the system's set up: The city doesn't use its IT resources to run a parking application; drivers simply make a phone call to the company to purchase time on the meter, and the company is responsible for maintaining the wireless network city staff use to determine whether a car has paid. "If this had been tied in to the parking meters themselves," Carlson said, "I wouldn't have gone near it." David Raths contributing writer David Raths is a freelance writer based in Portland, Maine. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TELECOM-CITIES Current searchable archives (Feb. 1, 2006 to present) at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Old searchble archives at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
