Some 340 meters in downtown Honolulu will not longer accept pay-by-phone transactions as of September 15. The story is that cell transactions are eating up too much of the meters’ battery life and the city is fed up with the extra maintenance. Only 1 percent of all users have paid with their cell phones, so there won’t be a reaction from the public.
However, the parking industry probably needs to react. This is a serious hiccup. Every new technology, venture or project has hiccups (see this recent blog post.) Trial and error is sometimes the quickest path to success. Now, a timely solution is the answer.
One Response
Strange – we don’t have that problem with competitors meters…….I suspect this was poor foresight on the meter manufacturers behalf. The market (and the industry) moved on a long time ago.
http://www.itslonline.com/Metro-voted-as-favourite.pdf
http://www.itslonline.com/category/86-its-parking.aspx
Note : I don’t think ITSL are the best meters in the market (they still have minor bugs). But at least its better than the single space meters that run out of battery.