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"Smart" Parking Meters Considered Dumb
theodp writes "The jury's still out on whether Chicago taxpayers were taken to the cleaners by a rushed 75-year lease of the city's metered parking to a Morgan Stanley consortium. But most would probably agree that the new shared Pay Boxes that replaced the city's old parking meters don't exactly live up to their 'Smart' billing. Here's what the redesigned 'user-friendly' parking solution looks like: 1. Park your car. 2. Walk up to 1/2 block to a Pay Box. 3. Wait in line to use it. 4. Use coins or credit cards to purchase parking time — up to $84 for 24-hours (add $50 if you run out of time). 5. Wait for a paper receipt to be printed. 6. Walk up to 1/2 block back to your car. 7. Place the receipt on your dashboard. 8. Head off to your destination, perhaps passing the Pay Box a second time. So before other cities suffer the same fate as Chicago, Portland, and others, is there a 'smarter' way? Some suggest the ParkMagic In-Car Meter, but no new orders are being taken in Chicago. Any other ideas?"
Yay, first post!
They have those things in Sacramento California also, they suck! I hate them! They're the worst!
I heard in some cities though that they place sensors under the parking spots that reset the meter whenever somebody removes their car, as another way of making sure nobody gets any free time.
If only there was some sort of token people could use to activate the meters... But it would have to be something almost everyone carries. Hmmm...
If one were to forge the ticket (which can not be examined closely while under the dash glass...), I wonder how often the meter readers would actually check the machine data or ticket number/serial?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What happens if parking enforcement comes around while you're in the middle of the walk-wait-pay-walk process?
This reminds me of the Gwinnette County traffic camera deal in Georgia where a private company took over a public service and it goes to heck. Granted the camera deal included a kickback from every ticket, so the company exploited the system to issue more tickets, but still... ideas like this should be brought before the public before implementation so that these problems have a chance to be thought through. Let me step down from the soapbox...
Body in a woodchipper...HA HA!
Also, the new meters could have worked, but the out-sourcing to a private company destroyed any hope of that.
An example of their ineptitude: they forgot to put batteries in some of the meters, making it impossible to get the magic slip of paper, and then ticketed people for it.
Ask anyone in Chicago who isn't on Daley's payroll, and they can tell you that the jury is not out on the parking meters: Daley, once again, did whatever the fuck he wanted and the residents, once again, were screwed over.
The parking meters described are user hostile to the population of Chicago. However, they do a much better job of keeping the life of the organization that bought them and runs them easy than having to physically collect coins from so many different parking meters.
The government is not the people.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
The car has to be tied to the payment.
Why? It wasn't with the old pay meters -- get out, drop your quarters in, and go. When you drive away from the meter with time still on it, somebody else gets a few minutes free. It would be nice, maybe, for the city (or in this case, Morgan Stanley... don't get me started here), but definitely not necessary.
I've seen this in multitude of places world wide. Not so popular in US but exists here and there. What exactly is their problem? Walking half a block extra? I knew people in Chicago were some of the least fit in the country but this sounds like extreme whining. Would they prefer to walk back from wherever they are every hour to "feed the meter"? Or do they want a system that lets them pay without leaving the car? That's called a parking garage :)
Here in Calgary there's a similar system called Park Plus. If you park downtown you have to find one of the park plus machines (they're not very hard to find, they're all over the place), and punch in your license plate # and a 4 digit code indicating where you're parked (those are on signs all over the place too). There's no receipt or parking pass though. The system is enforced by a set of trucks covered in cameras and antennas. I presume they automatically scan the license plate of every parked car and check against the central system whether you've paid or not. What's pretty cool about it is you can also setup a debit account with the system, and then pay through your cell phone- call the system once when you park to 'check in' and again when you leave to 'check out' and it deducts the payment from your account.
The system works pretty well in Vancouver, Canada.
You can use coins as normal or you can dial a phone number to pay by credit card. Each meter has a number used to identify it.
The first time you use it, you have to register a license and your credit card number. After that, it remembers it based on your caller id I would imagine. You can register multiple cars no problem. It's a bit of a pain enter your license the first time you use it (it would be nice if you could try to use voice recognition first) but after the first time, it's pretty smooth.
The nice thing is that you don't have to go back to your car when you run out of time. To me, that is the biggest pain of street parking. Forget that you have to go half a block to pay for parking. If you have to run back from a few blocks, or in the middle of eating, that is even worse. With the system, we just call the number again and it asks if you want to extend your time. You just enter how many minutes.
I usually use it like this: (a) put in as many coins as I have and take a picture of the meter which has the id number with my iPhone (b) if I'm not back by the amount of time I got from the coins, I call and add time.
Sunny
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The ParkMagic in-car meter is a scam on the part of the city to steal your paid-for parking time from you. (To be fair, the new smart meters a half a block away from you are probably a scam too). It used to be that if you had extra time on the meter, someone else could park there for the extra time and save themselves money. Considering that if someone else left with extra time you could park in their spot and take advantage of the free time, over the long run it would tend to average out that you were only paying for the actual time you spent parked in your spot.
Now with the new changes, nobody else can take advantage of leftover time on your meter when you leave, and you can't get any kind of refund. So all of the extra time that people pay for -- the city's getting their money for free.
Everyone says they want cities to stop over spending on infrastructure and to have realistic services but every time they inconvenience you just a little bit it's back to "spend spend spend! I can't walk half a block!"
I'm a Portland resident and have been in constant contact with these meters since they were installed a few years back. Seriously, they are not that bad! I don't know why there is even a debate about them. They are reasonably dispersed in Portland, so the "have to walk" argument does not apply. The price is about what you would expect for street parking... And anybody stupid enough to be street parking for 24 hours deserves the cost. You need overnight? Try a garage. Much cheaper.
So far, no drawbacks. Plus you can use a credit/debit card. I was thrilled when these went in here in Portland, and I haven't changed my mind yet.
Can somebody please give a solid answer as to why these meters are a problem?
In a number of cities in Israel you purchase scratch-off cards in connivence-stores. When you want to park you scratch the date/time off the card (to "activate" it) and hang it in your window. I think its pretty brilliant. No physical infrastructure to maintain. To money/coins to collect. If the city wants to change the price of parking - they just change it. No machines to update.
That only really works if parking is a nearly unlimited commodity. Unmetered parking when parking is scarce just leads to people circling forever, like New York City.
I mean, sure, no payment is always the most convenient option, because you don't have to deal with payment. You could avoid the hassle of tokens or payment cards on a subway if subway rides were free, too.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
1. Park your car.
2. Walk up to 1/2 block to store entrance.
3. Wait in line to enter and obtain a cart.
4. Pass the checkout counters and walk the equivalent of two or three blocks inside the stoor while manually loading groceries.
5. Wait in line to pay using coins or credit cards.
6. Wait for a paper receipt to be printed.
7. Walk up to 1/2 block back to your car.
8. Place the groceries in the car.
9. Head off to your destination.
10. Carry groceries inside destination.
11. Store groceries in various locations depending on consumability and shelf life at room temperature.
Embarassingly, it is already like this in Portland, Chicago and other cities worldwide.
Oh my god. I dropped my cheesy fries, ice cream and XXL soda and almost had a heart attack just thinking about walking up to half a block! Please resuscitate me when somebody comes up with a drive-through parking meter payment system.
My city started installing this system and I thought it was inefficient but could be more convenient in some circumstances.
However, I talked to one of the parking enforcement people and it was eye opening. They now know exactly when a meter expires via a wireless link from the smart meter to a handheld device. No need to walk past every meter now. They can just get a reading of which spot is expired and if a car is in that spot.
It's just a giant money grab by the city under the guise of "smart" technology. It's smart alright - smart for the city.
In Ann Arbor, the "smart" meters are susceptible to an exploit where if you add 5 cents of time to a meter, you remove all the existing time on that meter. For $1, a prankster can reset 20 parking spots and watch everyone get parking tickets. More info at this screenshot of a now-deleted comment on AnnArbor.com.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
In Taiwan it appears driver friendly rather than operator friendly. People just park and leave, then a parking inspector would come round every 30 minutes or something, take a photo of their number plate with a device, and leave a waterproof ticket on their windshield. Each time the inspector comes round he or she leaves more tickets on each windshield. When the driver comes back they get all the tickets and pay them at the nearest 7-11. I assume you have a certain grace period to pay the tickets.
Australian running a company that does C# / C++ / Java / SQL / Python / Mathematica
I don't understand the modern viewpoint that cars are evil, and their usage should be discouraged. They are simply an update of the classic horse-and-cart that humans have used for 10,000 years, and the reason humans used these carts was because they were great for carrying lots of stuff.
Don't believe me? Well I just bought almost a month's worth of groceries. Try carrying 20 bags onto the local subway or bus or walk home. I think I'll keep my horseless cart. Thanks.
As to the point of the article - This is just more of the same politician stupidity that gave us hackable, error-prone computer voting (and eventually led to the return of paper ballots). Just because something is "new" doesn't mean it's better than the old system. The old mechanical meters invented in the 1920s may not be sexy, but they get the job done, and as this article demonstrates the new meters are not any better.
An upgrade to new tech is only worthwhile if it's an actual UPgrade, rather than a downgrade.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Fact is that the SOIL is public. That means that the SOIL is YOURS. Now would you like to be charged for living into your house? I doubt it.
Ever heard of property/real estate tax?
Speaking as a Londoner -
That's not true about biking - the biggest worry about having a bike in London is that it will get stolen / vandalised when you lock it up. It doesn't stop people though, there's a thriving bicycle scene here, and I call bullshit on the idea of bikes being clamped (the clamps wouldn't fit for a start).
The tube is a pain in the arse - but that's mainly because when it was built they didn't think it necessary to put in 4 tunnels (like in NY), so they aren't able to maintain it properly (in NY they routinely shut down 2 tunnels to fix them, without having to shut down the whole line - in London they barely manage to keep the lines working in the 6 hours of down-time every night).
Then there's the overland rail network, and the buses - they have their problems too but they do give you options (I take the bus into work, and my journey is consistently between 20 and 30 minutes, and I always get a seat).
Anyone who drives in central London is crazy and / or masochistic, but what's new? It's been that way for ever, that's why I don't bother having a car. When I really need one I use a streetcar ( http://www.streetcar.co.uk/ ), a service that pays the congestion charge anyway (and note that it's only the centre of the city that has the charge, and only during office hours).
Then there's the DLR in East London, or the south London tram service - both examples of well-run, clean and effective public transport whose only downside is that they only service parts of the city.
In regards to the article - if you're looking for a 'smart' meter, how about using your mobile phone: http://www.bromley.gov.uk/transportandstreets/parking/park_phone_and_go.htm
Finally: "where citizen don't question for a long time the actions of their governors." - O RLY?
I'd rather do daily groceries by bike.
Do you have children? Do you live with a partner? Does s/he work? My wife and I each work and get home from work at around 5:30. We have dinner with our daughter around 6 or 6:30, then bath time, story time and bed time with one parent, while the other parent cleans up from dinner. Then it's an hour or so of 'us' time, before we head to bed. Where exactly in our schedule is this mythical time to do 'daily groceries by bike' in the dark pouring rain in February?