Talk:Parking meter

Alternatives
In Germany, most or even all (don't know exactly) parking meters have been replaced by parking ticket machines. The tickets contain the maximum parking time and must be placed behind the windshield. The machines are usually supplied with solar energy (taken from solar plates on the top of the machines). Most machines (at least in the federal state where I live) accept EC-bank-account cards (a common European alternative to credit cards). Some also accept the so called "Geldkarte" ("money card"), which refers to a chip on the EC-cards storing money as cash, which can be loaded from the bank account in special terminals in the banks and is also used for paying lower amounts of money in several other machines, such as public phone boxes, stamp machines or the ticket machines in public traffic. In some cities it is now also possible to pay via cellphone. (Since newer cellphone payment systems are still being tested with ticket machines in trains, etc., it still only works with calling a certain number - both at the beginning and at the end of the parking time. But it will probably change in the near future).

In many other Western European countries, it's quite similar. Of course, in countries in which real credit cards are more common than the EC cards, many machines also accept credit cards.

You can search for the German Wikipedia article called "Parkraumbewirtschaftung". It contains a section called "Gebührenerhebung in Deutschland" (for Germany) or "... in Osterreich" (for Austria). A picture of a simple model of the parking ticket machine can be seen there, and if there's someone who can speak German, you'll get further information in this article. Otherwise you can search the web for the word "Parkscheinautomat" (meaning "parking ticket machine").

77.25.95.121 (talk) 23:59, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

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Parking meter vs. Pay and display machine
Can these two pages be merged? Or should we consider the later machines as an evolution of the first. This way, parking meter stands for the old style Duncan individual meters (one for each space or a double one for each pair of spaces, which is still the same: indivudal) and Pay and display machines for the colective meter, which serve a ticket for display on the dashboard.

The two names are perfect for both generations of these machines, but for historical reasons, in some countries, even in those where the individual meters have been fully replaced by the colective pay & display systems, they are still named after the meter, like in Portugal: parcómetros.

If both the page exists, this leaves us with the problem of where to write all the vandalism, theft considerations that have allready been writen future considerations about usage, enforcement, management, collection, operation, the industry, the techonlogy, etc...

I mean, I would really like to do so.

Andrezero 01:13, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

What about Disc Machines? In Ireland this is called a (Parking) Disc Machine

xyzzer 2006-06-12 00:34 GMT

removed examples of security issues
There were 3 paragraphs adding 3 more vandalism and theft examples. It was 3 too many, one is enough.

These were the deleted examples:

In May 2004, police in the town of Wausau, Wisconsin reported that thieves had stolen about 38 meters. It was reported that the meters would take nearly $25,000(USD) to replace, along with associated vandalism.

In the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, an incident of attempted parking meter theft is what lands Paul Newman's character behind bars. Soon after the film ran, many municipalities that used parking meters employed countermeasures, such as sheathing the meter pole in a freely rotating steel pipe to protect it from a pipe-cutting tool.

The St. Joseph Hospital campus in Downtown Houston experienced parking meter theft where vandals would decapitate several Duncan 10-hour parking meters for loose change --  primarily from the homeless after the City of Houston amended the current parking ordinance to include Saturday-enforced parking from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Completed the existant paragraph with the brief enumeration of these various types of mutilation.

Andrezero 17:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Help: Design
Wanted to write down a paragraph about the vintage models, namely old Art Deco's & the 60's pop styled models...

Security needs and technology advances led to the constant renewel of thousands, maybe millions, of parking meters around the world, making it a popular piece of memorabilia in houses and offices. One can find units and parts on sale, fully restored and complete with the original vaults and keys. The old Art Deco's & the 60's pop styled models are the most emblematic ones because they are very represenive of two key periods of design history that were extremelly influential on street furniture development.

Andrezero 18:45, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Economics of parking meters
I'm confused about the economics of parking meters; they seem like a form of regressive taxation. It seems like you're just punishing people for doing business in your commerical areas, which would be counterproductive. What good behaviors do parking meters encourage? Are there any good economic analyses of revenue lost from discouraging consumers? -- Creidieki 13:39, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * From what I've read (I don't have sources at the top of my head, though, right now) they are supposed to subsidize the costs of maintaining the streets and discourage people from keeping their car sitting too long in areas with critical shortages of parking. The point is to encourage turnover.  Otherwise, as in Berkeley, California during that funny time when the meters were rendered useless by thieves for several years, you end up with a situation where everyone leaves their car at the curb in front of a business all day and the people who need to visit the downtown area for brief errands can't find any street parking and have to park in a garage anyway.  The fact is that either way, with free parking on the streets or in a garage, we will end up paying for it somehow.  But I agree that the suburban model of absorbing the parking costs into the operating costs of all facilities is much more convenient for consumers who don't have to worry about carrying change, feeding a meter, or watching the clock every time they go shopping.
 * Another good behavior it is supposed to encourage is the use of public transit (which then reduces pollution, congestion, and wear and tear on the streets in downtowns), although this only works in areas like Manhattan and Downtown Los Angeles where garages charge $20 per hour and the street meters give only 7 minutes (or less) for a quarter.--Coolcaesar 16:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There are several reasons why parking meters might exist on a given city's streets and different cities have different reasons. One reason is the obvious city revenue collection, which pays for infrastructure of sidewalks, roads, lighting, security, etc.  This trickles down to business and consumer benefits.  Another common reason cities use meters is as a device to encourage bylaw compliance.  It's common in dense business areas to have 1 or 2 hour maximum parking stays on street.  Street parking is the most desirable parking.  Likely, everyone would use it if they could.  So if workers or residents of the area were allowed to park in front of shops all day, with no turnover for consumers, business would likely suffer due to access.  (Off street lots, undergrounds, and garages allow for longer stays.)  So in this scenario, the "good behaviour" encouraged by meters is compliance to the bylaw of freeing up parking for others to use at regular intervals.  I would expect most consumers need parking for significantly less than a full business day, so in this case the local businesses would benefit from the valuable street parking being used by their customers, rather than residents and all-day workers.  (A meter usually won't allow more than the maximum stay to be purchased initially.  This limit can sometimes be overcome by re-feeding, though some meters require the car to move before resetting its timer.  Tire-chalking also supplements time-limit enforcement.) --Ds13 17:02, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Invention, patent, etc.
The article states that Carl Magee invented the parking meter. I removed a link to the company that Magee founded that backed this claim up. No offense intended, but a neutral source is probably more appropriate in this case. Something I read on that web page (http://pom.com/#History) is mildly confusing... it says that Magee sponsored university students to invent a parking meter. In the end, Magee apparently received a patent for the parking meter. Was he actually the inventor? --Ds13 05:17, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Use of foreign coins
Should there be a mention of how parking meters can be tricked by foreign coins. I just read this from a Canadian council; http://city.brockville.on.ca/forms/119-89%20Parking%20By-law.pdf The weird thing is, it seems to imply in Section 89 that it is okay and acceptable to use US coinage in their meters; seems a bit weird to encourage people to use US currency which has no legal tender status in Canada? Tarcus (talk) 08:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I was wondering...
In our more Britishly-inclined Anglophone counterparts, do they spell it parking meter or metre, because I know they spell meter like the measurement as metre, but this seems like one of those that could be exceptions. If it's not it should be noted as an alternate spelling. The Person Who Is Strange 01:17, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Popsicle Sticks?
There's this show on TruTV called "The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest". In one of their Episodes, I saw a segment that shows not ordinary civilians but public servants, including a police officer, were performing an underhand, money-saving trick of manipulating Parking Meters with popsicle sticks.

Apparently how the trick works is that when you push the popsicle stick into the coin slot, the stick will engage the dial mechanism that adds time to the meter's clock. And when you pull it out and push it back in again, you will engage the dial again to add more time to the clock. Doing this repeatedly can effectively trick the Meter into thinking that you're putting in a lot of quarters when you're really not spending any money at all. --Arima (talk) 00:11, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Localization
In Montreal, Quebec, Canada parking meters are used by the city to generate revenue. There has been a wholesale change from the traditional stand alone meter which one fed money into to centralized pay stations with markers for each parking spot. The current program allows for the city to collect more than the going rate for any one spot. Should a motorist deposit say $6 for 2 hours and then leave after 30 minutes the next motorist would be required to pay for the remaining 90 minutes although the service has in fact been paid for. This is patently illegal because the city is charging twice, or more, for the same service. Ramertl (talk) 19:54, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Other modern advances
Having gone over this article and made some minor formatting and citation edits, I believe moving the Other Modern Advances section into the History section would be in the interest of making the article more encyclopedic in structure. This change would continue the discussion in the History section concerning the technological development of parking meters and would leave the section concerning the alternatives to parking meters appropriately at the end of the article. In the spirit of WP:Bold I have posted my revised version of the History section with a subsection titled Modern advancements in my sandbox (User:Henryscobie/Mysandbox) in order to give an example of the revisions I am proposing. As noted on my user page, I have made all efforts to adhere to WP:NPOV and WP:RS as well as addressing any potential WP:COI. In the interest of finding WP:Consensus I welcome any Wikipedia users to comment and provide feedback on this proposed revision on either this talk page or on my user talk page (User talk:Henryscobie). Thanks! Henryscobie (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * After posting the above comment proposing edits to this article and providing what I felt was an adequate period of time for other editors to look over the revisions and provide feedback, I have gone ahead and implemented the revisions outlined above. I recognize that Wikipedia is a work in progress and welcome any feedback or continued dialogue on these and other edits.  Happy editing! Henryscobie (talk) 16:50, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposed revisions to operation section
Having gone over and already implemented some revisions to this article that I discussed above in the Talk page, I would like to propose another revision to the Operation section. After reviewing this article’s edit history, it is clear that several Wikipedia editors have added material and also flagged problems they found with the article. The primary flaws of this article, as I see it, are some structural flaws as well as a lack of citations. My suggestion for the Operation section would be to rephrase some of the content in order to make the language more encyclopedic in style, following WP:NOTGUIDE and then remove the uncited material in the last paragraph of the section. I would also then propose adding citations to the first two paragraphs and integrating them into the first part of the History section to provide a more flowing and chronological narrative. I think these edits would help to simplify the article’s structure and make it more comprehensible and encyclopedic for readers. To provide fellow Wikipedians with an example of these revisions I have posted my revised version of the article in my user page’s sandbox (User:Henryscobie/Mysandbox). As always, I am open to input and in the spirit of WP:Consensus, welcome any feedback from other editors before moving forward with the revisions. Thanks for your time, and happy editing! Henryscobie (talk) 13:35, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Having posted the above comment proposing edits to this article and providing an adequate period of time for other editors to look over the revisions and provide feedback, I have gone ahead and implemented the revisions outlined above. As always, I recognize that Wikipedia is a work in progress and welcome any feedback or continued dialogue on these and other edits.  Thanks for your time, Henryscobie (talk) 16:50, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Illegal to feed other peoples meters in some places
I did see any mention in the article about how some places have made it illegal to feed other people's meters. There have been some cases where a individuals where feeding other people's meters just before they where to expire as a act of charity and later found themselves in trouble with the law. Something about this should be mentioned in the legality section. --Cab88 (talk) 14:26, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

First to invent
Magee may have been the first to invent a working parking meter, but it seems quite clear that he was not the first to invent the meter. US patent 1731839, filed August 30, 1928 by Roger W. Babson, clearly describes a parking meter. Whether it was ever produced I do not know. עדירל (talk) 09:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

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