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Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS

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11–17 of 17 posts

Re: Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS

#11
post #8

> You can easily extend your time whenever you want The city will lose a lot of money with this. The amount taken in meters is a small fraction of what they make with tickets.

Actually, a counter example of this is when the City of Pittsburgh rolled out kiosks to accept credit cards. In the 2011 fiscal year, the Parking Authority earned $7.1 million from its metered parking spaces. In 2012, that amount climbed to $9.2 million, and in 2013, without December figures included, it increased to $12.2 million.

Re: Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS

#12
post #8

> You can easily extend your time whenever you want The city will lose a lot of money with this. The amount taken in meters is a small fraction of what they make with tickets.

I forgot to add, PPA lost only $100K in ticket revenue.

Re: Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS

#14
post #2

Hi, I’m Jim the CEO of Meter Feeder. We are excited to announce our product and that we are participating in Y Combinator W16. My co-founder and I are passionate about the pains of parking. We want to create a solution that is easy and elegant for everyone. Please let us know if you have any questions.

How do you handle different rates for different zones? Does the city hand you the zoning information + coordinates? In general, I'm curious how you work with the various municipalities.

We work with them to set up the initial zones (GIS coordinates are easy to find online). And there is an administrative dashboard that we provide the municipal director of parking where they can adjust the rates. It usually takes about 10 minutes for one of our team members to set up a new city.

Re: Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS

#15
post #13

What happens when the drivers don't have a mobile phone or app installed? Is the kiosk available?

Absolutely. We work with the current infrastructure. This means the coin based meters, or kiosks, etc.

Our goal is to keep their costs down, by integrating with whatever they have.

Re: Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS

#16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you handle different rates for different zones? Does the city hand you the zoning information + coordinates? In general, I'm curious how you work with the various municipalities.

We work with them to set up the initial zones (GIS coordinates are easy to find online). And there is an administrative dashboard that we provide the municipal director of parking where they can adjust the rates. It usually takes about 10 minutes for one of our team members to set up a new city.

10 minutes? That's pretty impressive! Next question: Are you in Chicago?

Re: Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We work with them to set up the initial zones (GIS coordinates are easy to find online). And there is an administrative dashboard that we provide the municipal director of parking where they can adjust the rates. It usually takes about 10 minutes for one of our team members to set up a new city.

10 minutes? That's pretty impressive! Next question: Are you in Chicago?

Unfortunately, no. However, we are excited to move into all of the places that can't afford Park Chicago.
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