Parking Meters
The Current State of the Art

While there have been a number of improvements in mechanical parking meters over the years, and there are probably hundreds of thousands such meters still in use, the introduction of electronic parking meters was a quantum leap in technology. The latest models offer features that weren't even dreamt of in 1935 when the first meters were installed at the corner of Park Avenue and Robinson in Oklahoma City.

Some of the latest offerings in electronic meters provide for on-board data storage and transfer to central databases for later analysis. This data includes information such as the amount of money a meter has collected, coin counts, meter usage patterns, violation information and the like.

A few models have proximity sensors which clear the time on a meter when a vehicle vacates its parking space, thus preventing drivers from parking on someone else's remaining time. At least one manufacturer offers a meter that takes a photograph of vehicles that are still parked after time has expired.

While these last couple of features serve only the interests of the meters' owners, a few meters are actually "driver friendly." Some accept prepaid parking cards, and in the event a driver returns before his time has expired, the card can be reinserted in the meter for an immediate, if not cheerful, refund of the value of that remaining time.

Some parking meters are not really parking meters in the traditional sense. Some are actually automated payment centers that dispense a receipt which the patron then displays on the dash of his car. Such "pay and display" systems serve a number of parking spaces with a single unit, thus reducing sidewalk clutter and personnel costs associated with meter maintenance and cash collection, all at the same time.

Pay and display systems at least vaguely resemble their older cousins. There are other parking control systems that don't even come close to our traditional ideas about parking meters. With one system the patron displays a pre-purchased printed parking permit which, when activated by folding at the appropriate point, begins counting time by changing color along a strip down the center of the permit. When the colored portion reaches the point on the permit marked "Expired," the patron is in violation.

For more information about the latest offerings in parking meters and parking control systems, be sure to check out the web sites of those manufacturers listed on my Links page.

Parking Meters The Current State of the Art

Parking Meters
The Current State of the Art