New Tech To Improve Parking In St. Louis City

Last week, officials with the City of Saint Louis announced their decision to install a new type of parking meter. This is the result of months of a competitive process and trials at specific locations in the city. The winners of the $5 million contract were Xerox and Parkmobile. The city’s plan to update street parking is a win-win situation, with opportunities to implement demand-based pricing as well as maximize the performance of the city’s meter system.

Above is one of the pilot units of Xerox’s solar-powered IPS single-space meters. The meters accept both coins and credit cards (although the minimum time for a credit card purchase is 1 hour). The Parkmobile app allows people to pay over their phone by space number. The app can warn costumers when only 15 minutes remain, and if the overall time limit is not expiring, users can renew their spot over the phone.

Upgrading the city meters can aid both the city’s bottom line and those people looking for parking. For the city, it reduces the cost of enforcement, as officers can know where expired meters are and focus their ticketing efforts. Moreover, the city can use the data from both the meters and the Parkmobile app to measure the performance of certain parking areas, allowing variable pricing to maximize city revenue.

From the perspective of those looking for parking, the city’s effort to properly price and enforce meter limits can mean more available parking. The new meters and Parkmobile app will make payment convenient and mark the end of having to feed the meter. Additionally, the mobile apps and parking meters may allow people to find available parking by providing information on available spaces, eliminating the hassle of cruising for parking, and decreasing urban congestion. Finally, the city is also conducting a study that might result in the removal of parking meters that do not generate enough revenue for their upkeep. That type of optimization, which saves the city and drivers, is long overdue.

For the City of Saint Louis to realize these benefits, officials must be prepared to coordinate data collection to create a more market-oriented street parking environment. If the city can manage that, and take advantage of rapidly improving software capability, these updates will improve the lives of city residents and the city’s bottom line.