h a l f b a k e r yGood ideas at the time.
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I have to pay to park near my work and everyday I have to sit at those little tiny slots and fold my dollars bills into eights and try to cram them into those tiny slots or plug 20 quarters into them at a time. With ATMs, change machines and vending machines able to take money so easily, why couldn't
someone invent a pay-to-park machine that does the same thing? Then you could add other things to it ... like being able to electronically enter the space number and license number of your car so that the parking attendant with the IQ of a slug wouldn't screw up and give you a ticket anyway. And while I'm at it, let's invent a small incendiary device that will get those damn boots off your tires when you've acquired too many unpaid parking tickets for the city to handle. Yes, I HATE parking in the city.
Parking Meter That Gives Change
http://www.halfbake...at_20Gives_20Change
Thinking along similar lines. [jutta, Aug 10 2000]
Parking meter page
http://www.ionet.ne...ttrell/current.html
Discusses the state of the art in parking meter technology (as of 1998, at least). [wiml, Aug 10 2000, last modified Oct 21 2004]
Telstra Parking
http://www.telstra....r_prom/dialpark.htm
Using your mobile phone to pay for your parking [reap, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
[link]
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This would be great to integrate with a debit or credit card. Just swipe your card, select the number of hours you'll be there, then push the button for the space number you're in. |
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In Chicago just about every lot will allow you to buy a monthly parking pass (in the form of a sticker or an electronic swipe card that works like a debit card) |
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As for the Boot: 1) Pay your tickets 2) Don't Park where you are not supposed to. |
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Blahginger -- Are you a cop? |
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Any question that begins "Why don't they" is almost invariably answered by 'Money'. It's cheap to have a rack of little boxes with slots that you jam bills into, where an ATM type machine would require power and phone and security... |
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Actually, I think the card-swipe thing would require less security because there wouldn't be any paper or coin money on the premises to steal ... |
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There are such things as electric parking meters. I can tell that you hate parking downtown cause you haven't been down there enough to know this. I have used them befor. It was great. It looked like a vending machine/ atm machine. You do punch in your space number and the hours you will be there. It spits out a ticket and you place it inside your car on the dash. It is a lovley thing. I have also seen it in the bigger cities. kzieg |
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Not everywhere has these...Downtown Tampa doesn't, that I know of. |
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Milroy, you're right...I was just thinking 'ATM'. Still applies to a point, though, as it's a lot harder to totally wreck a bunch of small steel boxes than it is to put superglue in the slot of one card reader... |
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A related feature I'd like to see at parking garages (at least when they're not so full as to be relying on "float") would be for the ticket-dispenser/payment system to assign space numbers and print them on the ticket. When you pull up to the entrance and push the "non-handicapped" button, the system would print a space number on the ticket and you could proceed directly to your space without having to look for one (which, in a crowded airport lot, could take awhile). Later when you retrieve your car, the system would know what space you'd occupied and know that it was free for the next vehicle. |
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in toronto we have parking garages that require you to swipe your credut card as you enter and as you leave. that way, line-ups at the pay booths are avoided, and you are billed directly. it think they still have one or two people to keep track of how full the lot is, so you don't enter and then can't find a spot. |
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Why not just do what the rest of the world does and have coins bigger than USD 0.25 (GBP 0.1771, EUR 0.2954, FRF 1.938, DEM 0.5778)? Then you don't need to design parking machines that take banknotes (except for those who insist on parking for *hours* and who don't carry a supply of GBP 1/EUR 2/FRF 10 coins (I don't think parking machines are fully with the times...)). |
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There actually are such devices called "In-vehicle parking meters". Used country wide in Israel and now spreading to the states (University of Wisconsin @ Milwaukee, Aspen, CO and Alexandria Virginia) Europe and Asia.
They all are designed in Isreal and go by the names Easy-Park, Smart-Park, Auto-Parq and Parkulator. You pay only for the time you park. I just submitted a grant for the purchase of them for UC, Santa Barbara with CMAQ funds. Do a search for the names above in any search engine to learn more or contact me at James.Wagner@park.ucsb.edu |
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The in-car parking meters are a clever idea --- much easier to implement than many of the improvements to curbside meters that people have described, and they have many of the same benefits. |
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Cal State LA has this. You drive up to a machine, swipe your ATM/Check Card/Credit Card, designate the amount of time and out pops a ATM-style receipt that you leave facing up on your car dash board. |
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Downtown Saint Paul has several similar lots on the fringe of the downtown (only lots where a person with a normal wage can afford to park). I too would like to see more of the types of machines described here, but in absence of that: how about an automatic coin dispensor that would feed a predescribed ammount of coins into those tiny self pre/pay slots? Forget about paper cash. Plus piss off the parking department by always using pennies to pay your fee. |
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Of course, there's always the expanding foam trick in each of the slots one dark night. |
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Alternately, there is the system currently being trialed in Melbourne (Aus) where you can call a number listed on the parking meter and have your parking fee added to your phone bill. [link]
Coins can still be used if required (i.e if you have a vodafone mobile) but they are not required. |
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What prevents an illegal parker from somehow opening up and modifying an in-car parking meter, or making a look-alike? |
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