You read below about how bad PR affects our industry. Here is another example. Cape May, NJ, has Pay by Space equipment. You can pay by coin or by card. Fair enough. But if you read the story the problems seem muddled and the city doesn’t seem to know what to do about it.
Problems like:
Time shows on credit card statement but not on meter
“Mechanical and electronic” problems
“Internet” failures
Battery Failures
And my personal Favorite:
This reporter battled a meter on Lyle Lane that would not accept money for parking space number five but insisted on crediting parking space number three.
You solve a problem by
Calling the police
Calling the Department of Public Works
Moving your car to another space
Going to court
Writing a letter
The city spokesperson says:
If a meter will not operate at all and a driver has not purchased a lot of time in the meter, he advised moving to another parking space. MacLeod said he realized it may be difficult to find another parking space in Cape May. He said a driver should not continue to park at a meter if it is inoperable because that is not justification to avoid a ticket.
I can see how folks in Cape May might feel a tad frustrated with their parking system. This sounds to me to be more of an administrative and PR problem than a technical issue with the equipment. However, if the equipment has as many problems as noted in the article – then perhaps a good service contract would be in order.
JVH
