This is a simple idea. The technology of it would have to be worked out, but the concept is basically to have parking meters debit your automatic toll thingie. No more searching for loose change, and no more parking tickets.

Each meter would have a given read radius, and it would start the debit when a ParkingPass entered that radius, and stop debiting when it left.
-- Vecini, Jan 13 2001

Electronic Pay-to-Park http://www.halfbake...ronic_20Pay-to-Park
Redundant? [egnor, Jan 13 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

I don't think such a thing would have to be so fully automated. The purpose of the automatic toll gizmos is not just to save people the hassle of fishing for change, but to save them the hassle of stopping. Since most people stop their cars when they park anyway, I think having the user take a keychain-sized transponder and hold it up to the meter would be just as effective. Additionally, if the transponder had a display on it, it could remind the person where he was parked.
-- supercat, Jan 13 2001


Parking meters' main purpose are not to raise revenue or to find mean ways to give us tickets. Notice that all parking meters are set up in shopping areas. The purpose of the meter is to limit the time you can spend in a space to rotate traffic for new customers to park and spend. So the idea of parking for indefinite periods of time (i.e. residents of the neighborhood, employees in the stores) then getting a bill for 13 dollars at the end of the month defeats the purpose of the meter. Where I live they ticket you if you go over the time limit, fed meter or not.
-- raisin, Jan 16 2001


How about a card and a shielded barcode-reader setup? Of course, then you run into the problem of people forgetting to "sign out". For this, I recommend pressure sensors in the spaces which would automatically stop charging if the car was removed. And the parking meter remembering where you parked is good, too. I'd recommend a "warmer, colder" system which would cause the card to beep at varying frequencies depending on your proximity to your spot. This would of course have to be something which could be turned off.
-- nick_n_uit, Jan 17 2001


When I go down town, I head straight for the nearest car park instead of searching for a meter. The meters are nearly (if not exactly) the same price as the city garages where I live. When I leave, I simply put the credit card in the machine and away I go.

There are some variations in the region. I have seen garages where you insert your credit card once when you arrive and again when you leave saving the waste of the small card that doesn't need to be printed. Of course, you can still pay in cash and get the paper card.
-- mgrant, Apr 15 2001


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
-- yojamey, Aug 31 2001



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