IPS credit card-enabled single-space meter

IPS Group, a US-based parking technologies and wireless communications company, has deployed 400 IPS parking metres in the Brookline, Massachusetts.

The IPS metres offer new payment options such as credit/debit cards, coins, tokens and smart cards, allowing drivers to simply park, pay and go.

The visual enforcement capabilities of the metres help in more efficient and convenient enforcement.

The latest move, which involved replacement of the city’s multi-space paystations with IPS metres, follows a successful trial of IPS credit card-enabled single-space parking metres.

The parking metres for the trial, which was carried out to measure public acceptance of the new technology, were provided free of cost by IPS.

IPS Sales East Coast general manager and director Frank Del Monaco said that the solar-powered metres retrofit into existing metre housings and require no additional civil work, installation of wireless network infrastructure, or signage for the motorists offering the least intrusive impact on the motorists, as well as current metre operations.

Brookline town administrator Melvin Kleckner said that some of the multi-space stations were removed from service and sold in order to fund the new IPS metres.

According to Brookline officials, the traditional paystations were confusing and time-consuming for motorists, and the replacement of the paystations with IPS metres has resulted in fewer contested parking citations.

In the event of a metre malfunction on a new IPS parking metre, only one space is impacted as compared to multiple spaces with a paystation, lessening the impact on revenue.

Brookline’s installation of multi-space paystations over single-space metres shows a growing trend seen in other cities such as Sarasota and Olympia.

Image: The IPS metres offer new payment options such as credit/debit cards, coins, tokens, and smart cards allowing drivers to simply park, pay and go. Photo: courtesy of PR Newswire/ IPS Group, Inc.