The city of Hartford has ended its six-month trial of electronic parking meters bristling with cameras and other electronics and will stay with its current meter vendor.
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The city of Hartford has ended its six-month trial of electronic parking meters bristling with cameras and other electronics and will stay with its current meter vendor.
The Hartford Parking Authority (HPA) last December launched what it originally planned as a trial of about a dozen curbside meters from Municipal Parking Services, of Minnetonka, Minn.
Thirty-four of the units were installed in various locations, particularly curbside along Lafayette Street, fronting the Superior Courthouse. Originally, the test was to run 90 days but was extended through June, to give HPA more time to observe parkers' interactions with the test meters, as well as harvest reams of operating data from the experiences, said HPA CEO Eric Boone.
Among other things, the test meters were capable, on top of monitoring parkers' metered times in the spaces, of photographing parkers' license plates and accepting coin or plastic as payment. Ultimately, though, Boone said HPA determined the tested meters weren't what it wanted.
“The technology hits its full stride in a retail environment,'' Boone said, where parking turnover is frequent and more desirable. “You don't get to reap the benefits of all the bells and whistles. … We couldn't fully optimize it for the city.''
For now, HPA has reinstalled on Lafayette Street the same Darth Vader-looking Parkeon electronic meters used on 1,600 of its curbside spaces citywide, Boone said.
– Gregory Seay
