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Parking Meter Usability Study by Taylor Roan |
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Improvements Information Flow Consideration of information access and timing will lead to great benefits in the user experience. The relevant information for someone searching for a parking spot is which spaces are available and for how long. The customer might also be interested in price at this point. An ideal meter would display this information so that it is visible from the road and in one place. Before exiting the vehicle, the customer should know how much and what kind of money to use at the meter. A meter which incorporates all of this information in a successful way would be a great improvement. Example Design This preliminary design described below is aimed at the customer rather than power users such as enforcing officers or maintenance crews. Power users quickly become familiar enough with meter interfaces to understand the implications of each display for their use. Example Form A possible embodiment of these features may look almost the same from the outside, but display different information. The street-side of the meter displays the following information:
The street-side of the meter may look like the form shown below. During metered parking, the meter displays the price (below, left). During unmetered parking (including meter malfunctions), the display says "FREE PARKING" (below, middle). When parking is prohibited (like for scheduled maintenance, street cleanings, or emergencies), the display simply states, "NO PARKING" (below, right). Note that a description of the acceptable methods of payment is visible to the driver before exiting the vehicle. A description of metering times is also given in smaller, permanent text below the display.
The sidewalk-side of the meter is almost identical to the stree-side. However, this side shows how long ago the meter expired (if expired) instead of the remaining time associated with the current status. This is information that is only needed for individuals on the sidewalk (i.e. the enforcement officer and returning customer who discovers a ticket on their windshield and wonders why). Placement Placement must be consistent. Universal placement of parking meters on the sidewalk nest to the center of the parking space would increase intuition for which parking meter belongs to which space. Internal Functionality The display replaces all other methods of determining parking availability. All of the information that is currently written on signs near the parking space is programmed internally. The meter contains an internal clock which will display whether or not parking is permitted at depending on the time of day and date. Parking hours, scheduled maintenance, and street cleanings are also pre-programmed. Emergency availability status (like for "snow emergencies" or city evacuations) is updated electronically. This allows the user to know whether or not parking is permitted by looking at a single, consolidated source of information. Future Possibilities Design prospects for the future may include entirely automated systems which eliminate the interface entirely. For example, a nearby camera could capture a video stream of the curbside traffic. The feed could be relayed to a citywide server that does shape tracking to calculate when vehicles enter or leave parking spots and the license plate numbers of the vehicles. The parking fees would be applied to each license plate number and then billed to the owner each month. This design eliminates the interfaces almost completely for all three users, the customer, the enforcing officer, and the meter crew. Parking contestations would be easily resolved with archived video. The meter crew may still need to perform maintenance from time to time, but the enforcing officer becomes unneeded. The customer interface could be easily contained in a single sign, shown below. This is the image presented during metered parking times.
During unmetered times, the sign would appear like this.
When parking is prohibited, the sign would look like this.
In each case, the customer would know the complete situation regarding their parking at a glance. Conclusion Parking meters currently appear on the streets in droves. With a little thought toward information flow and consolidation, many problematic aspects can be alleviated. |
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