New server will fix parking kiosk issue

By MEL ROTHENBURGER/

NEWS/ CITY — The glitch that caused downtown parking kiosks to crash June 4 is unlikely to happen again when an Internet server in France is swapped for a Canadian one, says the City’s corporate services manager David Duckworth.

The City had to allow free parking when a server in France operated by global parking technology giant Parkeon Inc. crashed. Meters in Kamloops and in several other cities across the country and worldwide conked out.

In Kamloops, hoods were pulled over the 90 solar-powered downtown kiosks for the day. An estimated $2,000 in revenue was lost.

Parkeon manufactures the kiosks and retains proprietary rights to the wireless technology that makes them work. The City’s contract is with Precise Parklink Inc., which is a Toronto-based Canadian distributor for Parkeon products.

 

It has a $1.2-million 10-year contract to supply, install and service the pay stations.

Duckworth said redundant servers will be installed in Toronto and problems such as the crash earlier in the month should be avoided in future.

“We’re slowly working out the problems,” said Duckworth, though he didn’t know when the new servers will be operational. It could be next week or next year, he said.

The City is also still looking at the costs of improving the kiosk screens to make them more readable, and at launching an app that will allow drivers to pay for their parking from their smart phones.

The app was touted as a benefit of the new kiosks when they were installed last November.

Other North American cities have experienced some issues with their Parkeon parking stations, as well.

A year ago, Parkeon assured the mayor of Cooperstown in New York that a meter failure caused by a server outage was unusual.

“Please be assured that this is not a regular occurrence with the Parkeon system,” the letter, quoted in the Cooperstown Crier, stated. “Our meters operate at a 99.9 percent uptime around the country.”

The outage shut down all of the Parkeon meters in the region, with the machines not taking credit cards for several hours. “We appreciate the opportunity you have provided us and we will work hard to ensure that your system works smoothly from here on out,” the letter concluded.

Three years ago, Seattle had a problem when Parkeon meters wouldn’t allow people to pay for their parking spots. The Post-Intelligencer reported that about 100 stations wouldn’t provide receipts when credit cards were used.

At about the same time, Philadelphia experienced similar problems with credit cards. That city spent $10 million on Parkeon kiosks. The problem there lasted three weeks.

The website CNYCentral.com reported in September 2012 that the city of Syracuse was looking at replacing 270 Parkeon pay stations at a cost of $2.4 million because the wireless data connection inside the kiosks was about to expire.

The alternative was to let the connection expire and have the seven-year-old kiosks accept only coins. The Syracuse council approved the expenditure.

“If you want to think of it this way it would be like an upgrade from an iPhone 2 to an iPhone 5,” legislative aide  Craig Wilson said in The Daily Orange.

Next month, Syracuse expects to implement an app to allow people to pay with their smart phones.

“On the app, there will be a map,” public works commissioner Pete O’Connor told WRVO Public Media. “You’ll punch in what block you’re in. The meter will pop up for that block, you punch in what time you want, what credit card you want, and your license plate number. That’s it.”

Parkeon will charge 35 cents for using a smart phone to pay for parking, said WRVO Public media.