Parkeon terminals back in town

Love them or hate them, the Parkeon parking meters are back.

The revamped terminals were unveiled at the April 7 meeting of the village Board of Trustees, a little more than three months after Mayor Francis X. Murray scrapped the original program in December, responding to complaints from residents and businesses alike. Murray said that while the new terminals are essentially the same, structurally, their operating system has been streamlined in order to make the process of paying for a spot easier for residents, business owners and shoppers.

“There’s no more pay and display — [it’s] numbered spots,” Murray said. “If you have a smartphone, you can pay by smartphone. You can pay before you even get out of the car.”

According to Village Comptroller Michael Schussheim, the improved terminals will equal the cost of the originals — $66,000.

Each terminal covers four parking spots — meaning, roughly, that each block of Park Avenue will have two terminals, one on each side. The devices still accept cash, coins, MasterCard and Visa, and users will also be able to pay remotely with a smartphone app called Parkmobile, which is used in cities across the country, including Denver, Phoenix and Washington, D.C.

The interface of the terminals has remained mostly the same, with only minor changes to the screen in order to make it easier to see in sunlight. The system itself, however, is much leaner. The much-heralded couponing function has been removed for the time being to maximize efficiency and help residents purchase parking time more easily. Receipts print quickly, and because this system, like the parking terminals in the village’s municipal lots, does not involve displaying a ticket on the dashboard, shoppers don’t have to return to their car once they’ve paid.

“We wake the machine up with the start button,” said Sean Renn, the marketing director of Parkeon, in his presentation. “You get presented with a screen that shows you the rates in the village. You enter your space number, and you press OK to confirm, then you insert your coin or credit card — you can use a Visa or a MasterCard. … It will tell you how long you’re paid until, and then you take your receipt. That’s it.”

The shape and size of the terminals will remain the same, but the lime green casing has been removed. The screen remains relatively small and is still governed by a small cluster of buttons, and Renn said that the technology to run touch screens via solar power is simply not up to par yet, but that the company has been working toward that possibility and will consider replacing the screens if it is perfected.

Murray said that a committee of residents planned to visit Village Hall to test the terminals on Tuesday and Wednesday, after the Herald went to press. Their suggestions for improvements would be taken into consideration, he said, before the system goes fully operational. But, he added, he believes that this time around, usability should not be an issue. “I’m almost 63 years old,” said Murray, “and I used the thing, and it was real easy.”