Parking 2.0

New Technology

Meters go high tech

The technology has been changing constantly and frequently,new technology come every day and it makes vehicles efficient safer and comfortable.But not so surprisingly the parking meters haven’t changed much.It is just like when it was invented some where in the last century.Its working is simpler than anything else,pull up to the curb, fish in your ashtray for a couple of coins, and insert them in a street-side meter that is essentially a ruggedized egg timer.

But now,new technology are helping or going to help the authorities to get a twin bonus,collect revenue and limiting a small number of cars monopolizing a limited number of parking spots by helping upgrading the parking meters.This technology also makes the life of a motorist easy,by making the tasks of finding a space and paying to park less of a hassle.

Actually this new parking meter system was once tested in St. Petersburg, Fla.They installed 40 solar powered smart parking meters made by Cale Systems.These allowed the drivers to pay with coins,debit/credit cards.

The parking meters machines are connected to a server and a hand held General Packet Radio Service, or more commonly knows as GPRS,devices for parking agents.The agents use these devices to get real time information about which spaces should be empty due to expiring of the time.

Edwards Olender, vice president for product and support at Cale Systems says,“There were a whole bunch of technical hurdles we had to deal with to make this work”.One of them was ensuring the server wont shut down to save power when there is no data flow between servers,terminals,devices,etc…

There are other parking meter schemes available,which are ever more exotic,using wireless communication to let the drivers pay for the parking space.These parking meters can allow them to pay for parking in advance,reserve a space,or even add additional time to their account.In some systems they even have a personalized parking meter.

One of the main benefits of this parking meters is that,they are charged for minutes of usage,not for a chunk of time,which are often un-necessary.Also with this system drivers wont have to worry about taking a wrong turn on the street,just to park.

Wait there is more to come.Drivers could log on to a site and reserve a parking space,hours or even days in advance.The site displays in real time number of available spots.Now if the drivers comes there without a reservation he could just call on a hot line using his cellphone and book one if there is any.How cool is that ???

Another parking meter technology which was tested and found successful in using the cellphones.But here,the drivers need a prepaid account.Now each time they park,money is debuted from that account,and when it is about to run out,the company will sent messages to the cell to remind the driver.Now he can just call back and make the payment for more time.

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