ROTHENBURGER — Kiosks aren’t just for parking anymore

COLUMN — The machine stands there in the trade show, beckoning to me seductively. It looks like the spawn of R2D2 and a VLT from Vegas, all bright and shiny and flashing videos and maps on its big screen.

Pierre Barré, the director of development for municipal affairs for the Vinci Park company, immediately picks up on my interest.

Admittedly, I’m here in Edmonton representing the TNRD at the annual Federation of Canadian Municipalities convention. We don’t have much call for parking kiosks in Electoral Area P. Still, I do park downtown several times a week and have developed, shall we say, certain opinions about parking kiosks.

The machine before me is, in a word, marvelous. Barré is only too happy to explain its many features. The Mentis kiosk is top of the line.

It is so much more than a parking kiosk. It can tell you where to find a restaurant, give you a map of the area you’re in, play you a video of entertainment options, or accept your parking fine payment.

It can adjust parking rates at various times of the day, charging more during peak parking hours and less in slower periods. It can tell you where empty parking spaces are. I suspect it can give you a shave and a haircut, too, and could sell you the daily newspaper if you’re town has one.

I like this machine. And liking a parking kiosk doesn’t come easily. Truth be told, I have a natural bias against them. I approach a parking kiosk in a bad mood right off the bat. I expect to not get along with it.

But this — this is different. You can develop a relationship with a machine like this. If it could serve you coffee to go, with room, it would be perfect. I suspect that’s coming.

“How much are these babies?” I ask the affable Mr. Barré.

“Twelve grand,” he says unapologetically.

Okay, with 90 kiosks in downtown Kamloops, that would come in at $1.08 million, way less than a performing arts centre.

Still, the taxpayers of Kamloops might have trouble saying yes to a $12,000 parking kiosk no matter how much they like it. But we can dream, can’t we?

What strikes me, though, is that parking is big business. That in itself might not be news, but I mean BIG. This particular trade show is full of people with parking kiosks, parking software, parking “solutions” — companies like Vinci, Impark, and ParkPlus.

They offer not only better ways to manage parking, but ways to make serious money from it. They sell their wares to cities, hotels, casinos, airports, cruise ship lines.

As Mentis, the European company that supplies my dream kiosk through Vinci, says, a parking lot isn’t filled with cars — it’s filled with opportunity.

The possibilities for parking kiosks are limited only by imagination. Combine a parking kiosk with any type of vending machine you can think of. Add an ATM and banking services.

Crazy? Maybe, but I expect the humble parking kiosk, descendant of the coins-only parking meter, isn’t going to stop with videos and Google maps.

Just a couple of years ago, City Hall thought it was taking a giant leap for parking kind by putting those clunky, already outdated kiosks in downtown Kamloops. They’re only the beginning.

Mel Rothenburger can be reached at armchairmayor@gmail.com, @MelRothenburger on Twitter, or facebook.com/mel.rothenburger.7.