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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."
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
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.
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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.
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.