Change is coming to Charlotte’s parking meters as the city expands smart technology

Charlotte will phase out its remaining 410 coin-only street parking meters over the next two years and replace them with smart technology that accepts different payment types.

The Charlotte City Council voted Monday night to renew a two-year contract with IPS Group — a California-based company that specializes in intelligent parking systems and data management — and purchase the meters.

The technology will cost the city an estimated $135,000 annually. The contract allows the city manager to buy “additional software licenses, services, hardware, maintenance, and support” that may be required for upkeep of the smart meters.

Kathy Dennis, the public service and communications division manager for the Charlotte Department of Transportation, said Charlotte has “old equipment” on the streets and is ready to install the smart meter emplacements.

“A lot of our customers want to be able to pay with a credit or debit card,” Dennis said, adding that drivers can also pay for street parking on a mobile application called Park It.

Upgrading the technology is expected to increase city revenues, since the smart parking meters won’t require as much maintenance, according to the council’s business meeting agenda.

CDOT can also remotely monitor the smart meters for technical issues, unlike coin-only meters that require contractors to physically check on them and make repairs, Dennis said.

There are currently about 1,430 metered parking spaces scattered throughout the city, primarily in uptown, South End and Elizabeth. That includes nearly 700 spaces equipped with an older model of smart meters and 320 spots that use pay stations, according to the council’s business meeting agenda.

Through the contract, Charlotte also plans to replace 550 smart meters that are “reaching the end of their projected life,” according to the council’s agenda.

A coin-fed, single-space meter costs about $325, compared to a single-space smart meter priced at $475, Dennis said. Yet the cost differential, she said, reflects a more reliable and customer-friendly way to pay for parking.

“We’re always looking for opportunities to have the latest and greatest technology so that we’re operating more efficiently,” Dennis said. “If somebody pulls up to a parking meter now and it’s not functioning, they’re not obligated to pay for that space.”

City Manager Marcus Jones told council members that Charlotte is already exploring solutions for more advanced parking technology and will solicit bids in the coming months. As Jones sees it, Monday’s contract renewal was a short-term approach for fixing faulty and outdated meters.

Council member Tariq Bokhari encouraged Jones to review the possibility of installing double-space smart parking meters as a cost-saving measure.

“I think we all know that longer-term, we aren’t necessarily in the future state we want to be in with smart parking,” Bokhari said. “This is obviously something that is incremental — a technical debt that we need to clean up.”