Pilot program: high-tech parking meters on Broad Street

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The Bloomfield Parking Authority will have a second pilot program using high-tech parking meters that record license plates and automatically ticket violators.

According to Anne Prince, the BPA operations manager, the seven parking meters currently in use during the first pilot program, on Washington Street, will be moved to the east side of Broad Street just north of Bloomfield Avenue.
“On the side where Mandee is, and the college bookstore,” she said of the new location. “We felt we wanted more information.”

The change in location is to collect data from different demographics. The move will occur at the end of this month. Tickets were not automatically issued during the Washington Street pilot but data was captured. The Mandee Shop is located at 25 Broad St.

“Washington Street tended to have people for commuter parking,” Prince said. “Broad Street parkers are more in-and-out, just stopping for a little while. There’s more turnover.”

The parking meters are being provided by Municipal Parking Services, of Minneapolis. If the BPA should officially decide to install them in the township, the company would pay for it. The revenue from violations would be divided between the company and the BPA. How much revenue the BPA would get has not been determined, according to Prince. She said the company will have a presentation at the December BPA meeting but a vote on installing the meters has not be scheduled. The current pilot program will be for one month. It will be the last pilot program for the meters, Prince said.

The data captured on Washington Street showed an increase in cars that would have been ticketed. During the pilot program, no tickets were issued.

“There was an increase but all were for non-compliance or people not paying the meter at all,” she said.

The Washington Street pilot, which recently ended, was for 90 days. Prince said during the first month people complained about the meters and she felt that was normal for any change. But with the new meters, a person can pay with quarters or credit card.

“Most people found it a convenience being given an alternate way to pay,” she said.

The meters, when fully operational, will allow someone to pay via cell phone and hone into a vacant space via their GPS. There is a five-minute period of grace to pay when a car first pulls in, and a five-minute period of grace, after time expires, to pull out. And if a car pulls out before time expires, the remaining time expires automatically.

The meter is also equipped with a video monitor for news and advertisements, a microphone, and a camera directed away from the street and toward the sidewalk. Prince had said this camera was for “merchant security.” They were not activated during the Washington Street pilot program. Mayor Michael Venezia, in a previously published statement, said he was impressed with the meters but “lukewarm” about the cameras. Prince said the Broad Street pilot would not issue tickets automatically: Meter maids would still patrol.

If the new meters were installed officially, Prince said she did not think any signage was necessary to inform drivers that they would get a ticket even if they were sitting in the car.

“A meter is a meter is a meter,” she said. “When there is a meter, you have to pay for it.”0.