Sure, Boston isn’t perfect. Put your head on a swivel and you’ll probably spot several items in need of some kind of improvement, including the MBTA. Such is life, I suppose. But for contemporary Boston, arguably the biggest and most obnoxious aspect in need of fixing is parking. In Somerville, residents will soon be able to feed their meters remotely. In Boston, a similar innovation will soon be available.
On Monday the City of Somerville announced a partnership with Parkmobile so that people can pay their parking meters by simply using their mobile device. Innovation does not always equate to convenience, but when it comes to parking, cities like Somerville and now Boston are hoping to merge the two to the benefit of city-dwellers.
“We’ve been doing a ton of collaborative work with the Boston Transportation Department, everything from the TicketZen collaboration to a forth-coming mobile payment provider for meters to what the next generation of meters is going to look like,” Kris Carter of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics told me.
But Carter and this constituent municipal tinkerers aren’t quite ready to reveal their own version of a mobile parking meter payment platform. However, from the details we’ve been given, it sounds awesome.
“Boston is in the midst of finalizing an evaluation process for a mobile payment app, which will also include a Pay-By-Voice option for individuals without access to a smart phone,” Kate Norton, Mayor Marty Walsh’s Press Secretary said. “This is a combined effort with the Boston Transportation Department and the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics .”
Norton also mentioned that the City of Boston and New Urban Mechanics have been collecting and analyzing data from Parker, an app they launched to determine best parking practices in the Innovation District. It provides real-time availability of on-street parking for 329 spaces, the data of which is expected to be made publicly available in the imminent future.
“If you’re an app developer, it’s a pretty good time,” continued Carter, “The single greatest thing in the world for transportation right now is the smartphone. It’s providing all these mobility options that didn’t exist three years ago.”
The New Urban Mechanics are also considering what’s called dynamic pricing for parking meters, a system of fluctuating the pricing of meters during times of heavy use, or lack thereof, to make more street spaces available. This sounds reminiscent of Uber’s notorious surge pricing, but the New Urban Mechanics refuse to refer to it as such.
“We’re not trying to gouge people,” said Nigel Jacob, co-founder of the New Urban Mechanics.
“The goal being we want at least one parking space open at every curb front in the city,” added Carter.
That for now, dynamic parking meter pricing is just an idea the New Urban Mechanics are throwing around. But this voice-activated parking meter payment system is likely to be afforded to Bostonians in the coming weeks.
