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Montreal Parking Meters Run Linux
jbecherv writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, new-fangled Montreal parking meters run embedded Linux (Google Cache). The City of Montreal is planning to roll out 500 to 800 wireless, solar-powered parking payment stations based on embedded Linux. There is even a
device profile
(Google Cache) that show some details about the meters... These meters run kernel 2.4.19 on a 206MHz StrongARM SA-1110. Each system has 64MB of RAM, boots from a CF device, and is networked wirelessly via GPRS."
Cale Systems and 8D Technologies deliver one of the world's most advanced parking systems - wireless electronic payment and management - to be deployed in a large North-American city
Oods are this is using a SODIM setup. In which case 64MB is the smallest amount of RAM you can get.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
They're in use throughout Edinburgh, Scotland. I guess solar technology has improved a bit, as we don't get that much sun and daylight hours in the winter are quite short.
Parking meters in London
London Congestion Charge
The congestion charge has pros and cons. It seems to reduce traffic somewhat, generates money to be used for buses, and probably cuts pollution. Some argue it works too well, hurting businesses in the central zone, and some people are occasionally sent a fine for not paying the charge even though they never went near the central zone. It works by a camera trying to OCR the license plate. The recognition can go wrong, and the camera can take snaps of people who don't actually enter the zone occassionally.
Still, personally I'm in favour of it - I don't drive in London because it gets in the way of my drinking.
This is not a sig
Where did you get the idea that old style parking meters "just work." Many are based on a wind up mechanism for the timing. They are notorously inaccurate. There is a reason people switched from wind up watches to digital watches.
http://www.windmeadow.com/
as if meters aren't expensive enough... We really needed someone to come up w/the bright idea to allow dynamic changes to parking meters.
The last parking meter I parked at was 25 cents for 10 minutes. That's just nuts. This will just enable them to have meters that take credit cards forcing even higher rates.
Want a way to stop people from coming downtown? Raise the rates on the meters even higher.
You ever tried to find parking in downtown Montreal during an event? Hell, there is a reason when I lived in Montreal I did not even bother to get my drivers licence. The transit system there is wicked, and you can get pretty much anywhere you need to with it. But parking in the downtown core? It was always a pain in the ass. There is just not enough parking there, hell, when I went back to visit, I parked on the outskirts and took the metro to get downtown. I saved time on the parking.
Look at it this way - it is a tax on those who are too lazy to take the public transit system, which is better for the environment anyhow. With the amount of parking space that is there I have no sympathy for anyone who drives in circles around the St. Catherines St Laurent area looking for a spot.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
CF is actually an interface(and really, it's just a repackaged ATA interface)...not really a device. IBM sells hard drives that conform to the CF interface. There are also flash devices out there.
And I wouldn't use it for swap space, anyway. When developing an embedded system, you really should slim your memory footprint as far as possible, so you'd fit inside your available RAM.
The way old-timer software developers talk about it, your really start thinking of proper memory usage as a nearly-lost art.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Dude ever heard of a search engine? this query searches their domain for interesting stuff which yeilds: //labs.8d.com/arm/
http
this is toolchain which is IMHO all you need.
There's a company called Verrus that lets you call a phone number on parking meters and enter how many hours you're going to park for. Touch tone stuff. Low tech. Freaking works great though. Cool thing is... you can call back in to extend your time remotely.
It doesn't actually talk to the meter at all, so basically these are just stickers you can paste anywhere to charge for parking. Ahahah, a landlords dream! The meter maids (or meter dudes) walk around with their own phones (WAP? J2ME?) to check that you're paid. Anyways, seems to me this has to be cheaper than some freaking rocket science parking meter that's more complicated, vandal-prone, buggy, etc. One PDA patrols a helluvalotta parking spaces.
I've actually used this thing in Seattle and Vancouver. They had a WAP service and it was alright, but I ended up using the touchtones. My experience the first time was actually pretty painful. You have to enter your Visa # once and your license plate(s), but then it uses Caller ID and a PIN for when you call back in the future.
Keep your WiFi/WAP/Bluetooth/RFID. Gimme touch tones!
If they are what I think they are, here is how they work:
It's not every single meter that is like that. It's a kiosk on a small block where you go buy parking time. Then you put the ticket in your car.
The trick is that in theory, you buy more time than you need. But since you leave with the ticket, the next guy has no idea how much time is left. So the city gets to charge twice (or more) for a certain period of parking time.
Did you know that Quebec is the only place in North America where an unpaid parking ticket will cause an arrest warrant to be issued?
Pretty ridiculous if you ask me..
We actually have one and two dollar coins which helps a little, but your point stands. That would be a pain.
Actually, they make more money writing tickets, even taking the cost of employing people to write tickets into account. As for time and complaints, I've never seen a municipal office that wasn't perfectly willing to let you waste your time complaining to them... :)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Hi,
I work for Precise Parklink, the provider for the Toronto Parking Authority and many municipalities in Ontario and Western Canada. Our machines are solely based on a EPROM with very little data stored. Why would anyone need 64MB? Our machines also operate on GPRS GSM 'and' Mobitex, solar power, wireless, etc. There's no kernel, no flash card, and works great. One thing that would really impress me is if these Linux machines could accept debit, and most of all, if someone is able to hack it. Also, storing credit card data on a compactflash card garentees the data always exists, which is a bad thing if someone were to tamper with the machine. With our machines, the transactions aren't stored on the EPROM, but instead on RAM. If the machine is turned off or reset, the cc data is lost and the parker is safe from someone stealing their credit card number. Bottom line, the more advanced technology gets for parking meters, the more susceptable to fraud, bugs, and security issues.
It looks easier to chop up than a real parking meter to me. Traditional parking meters are mounting on a pipe of thick wall steel, they just bend a little if you slam into them at 35mph with a truck. And take forever to hack saw.
That parking meter looks on par with a telephone circuit box. you could probably take it out with a chain and a chevy. It looks less imposing than an ATM.
Of course an angle grinder would be the best bet. then you can just open it up like a tin can, take the parts out you want and not have to deal with all that large bulky incriminating evidence.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
How do they make you pay? I still owe parking tickets in Berkeley. It's been perhaps four years since I last heard from the city of berkeley about them. I actually live in a different county so maybe it's harder for them to force me to pay. I don't know.
I don't think in this state they can suspend your driver's license or anything for parking tickets.
Where I live they get you when you renew your plates. I'll mention that to Arnie next time I see him, he can use the money.
Here in Portland, OR, where it rains almost as much, we have quite a few of them (solar powered), and they work fine even on cloudy winter days.
Funny eh? I work in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle and just today they had some machines very similar to these in operation on Occidental just south of Yesler. They ripped out the old meters and hiked up the rates by 50% too. Ahhh progress. I even found a link.
They aren't parking meters. They are payment stations which each cover a large number of bays. They take credit cards (which need to be validated) as well as coins, they can report which bays have been paid for and which haven't, and they can adjust prices according to (anticipated) demand.
It's possible that it has one of those big heavy pipes running clear through it. It's even more likely that if it doesn't at first, it will after a short period of time.
Do you recognize how noisy angle grinders are? Hopefully you will before you go at it. You'd not even be able to hear the squad car approaching if it had the siren going.
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