Comments on: IPS Group, a Cellular Equipment Firm, Raising $1.5 Million in Shift to Parking Meter Business http://www.xconomy.com/san-diego/2009/08/07/ips-group-a-cellular-equipment-firm-raising-15-million-in-shift-to-parking-meter-business/ Business + Technology in the Exponential Economy Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:14:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Bruce V. Bigelow http://www.xconomy.com/san-diego/2009/08/07/ips-group-a-cellular-equipment-firm-raising-15-million-in-shift-to-parking-meter-business/comment-page-1/#comment-74059 Bruce V. Bigelow Sat, 08 Aug 2009 17:21:29 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/?p=36716#comment-74059 Gc: These are all great, thoughtful comments. Thanks! Gc: These are all great, thoughtful comments. Thanks!

]]> By: Gc http://www.xconomy.com/san-diego/2009/08/07/ips-group-a-cellular-equipment-firm-raising-15-million-in-shift-to-parking-meter-business/comment-page-1/#comment-73920 Gc Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:51:16 +0000 http://www.xconomy.com/?p=36716#comment-73920 Quick brainstorm of some more obvious ways wirelessly connected parking meters might help increase municipal parking funds: 1. credit card payments reduce labor requirements, since the coin bin fills up less quickly so collectors can collect the change less frequently. 2. wireless communications can tell the collector which meters are full, so less labor is wasted opening meters that are not nearly full yet. (Traveling meter collector challenge: find the quickest route to just the meters that need collecting today. Add nearby meters that will need collecting soon.) 3. Help parkers find open spaces, to reduce unpaid unoccupied time. Wireless occupancy map helps parkers find space a block away down a side street or hidden in a parking lot. An 'open' space might either be an expired space, or if the meters have occupancy detectors, an unoccupied space. Soon-to-expire spaces that might open up soon could also be shown with different icon or color. (Possible additional benefits: less vehicles searching may lead to less smog and greenhouse gas emissions.) 4. Increase parking ticket revenue: If the meters have occupancy detectors, then they can help increase ticket revenue by identifying occupied expired spaces, and the meter checker can bike straight to that meter to issue a ticket. Or if paid by credit, then the ticket can be immediately associated with the owner of the credit card (assuming the driver paid, not a passenger), with an option for the owner to charge it to the credit card. 5. The parking meeter might help you find your car: It might broadcast its gps coordinates to your phone if you forget where you parked. A happier shopper may be more likely to come back frequently. (This may not work so well as strict gps, since parking spaces are hard to find when they are not open, such as between tall buildings or in parking garages. Maybe meeter-net could form its own location service, similar to wifi-based location services, using either wifi or bluetooth to the phone. I can imagine telling my phone to ask the meeters where to go, and the nearby meeters respond with blinking arrows telling me which way to go, backed up with a map on my phone in case it is rush hour.) Quick brainstorm of some more obvious ways wirelessly connected parking meters might help increase municipal parking funds:

1. credit card payments reduce labor requirements, since the coin bin fills up less quickly so collectors can collect the change less frequently.

2. wireless communications can tell the collector which meters are full, so less labor is wasted opening meters that are not nearly full yet. (Traveling meter collector challenge: find the quickest route to just the meters that need collecting today. Add nearby meters that will need collecting soon.)

3. Help parkers find open spaces, to reduce unpaid unoccupied time. Wireless occupancy map helps parkers find space a block away down a side street or hidden in a parking lot. An ‘open’ space might either be an expired space, or if the meters have occupancy detectors, an unoccupied space. Soon-to-expire spaces that might open up soon could also be shown with different icon or color. (Possible additional benefits: less vehicles searching may lead to less smog and greenhouse gas emissions.)

4. Increase parking ticket revenue: If the meters have occupancy detectors, then they can help increase ticket revenue by identifying occupied expired spaces, and the meter checker can bike straight to that meter to issue a ticket. Or if paid by credit, then the ticket can be immediately associated with the owner of the credit card (assuming the driver paid, not a passenger), with an option for the owner to charge it to the credit card.

5. The parking meeter might help you find your car: It might broadcast its gps coordinates to your phone if you forget where you parked. A happier shopper may be more likely to come back frequently. (This may not work so well as strict gps, since parking spaces are hard to find when they are not open, such as between tall buildings or in parking garages. Maybe meeter-net could form its own location service, similar to wifi-based location services, using either wifi or bluetooth to the phone. I can imagine telling my phone to ask the meeters where to go, and the nearby meeters respond with blinking arrows telling me which way to go, backed up with a map on my phone in case it is rush hour.)

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