Cities are under a great deal of pressure in recent years. In an environmental sense, urban areas pose many challenges; problems such as pollution, carbon emissions, and waste management give city officials difficulties on a daily basis. To make matters even more complicated, local governments are met with budget limitations and are having to reduce spending as much as possible. This creates an unfortunate paradox; cities are trying to reduce their environmentally damaging practices, but in most cases do not have the funds to make widespread switches to environmentally friendly technologies. Los Angeles became one of the first cities to implement a solar powered parking meter initiative that hoped to address both the environmental and financial issues of the city.
The solar powered parking meters, made by the San Diego based IPS Group, are some of the most convenient, profitable and environmentally beneficial parking meters ever made. The meter’s batteries are completely charged by clean, free solar power and have a guaranteed lifetime of at least three years. The simple design, which can easily be retrofitted to old parking meter posts, allowed for the city to easily install 10,000 of the meters throughout Los Angeles. The convenience of the IPS Group solar meters is increased, because of the wireless network feature that allows for parking urbanites to pay by credit or debit card. This feature is particularly important because the IPS Group parking meters are the only in the world to be solar powered and take credit/debit card payments as well as traditional coin payments. In addition to easier to use, it has quickly been discovered that allowing patrons to use credit/debit cards actually dramatically increases the revenue of parking meters (people are more likely not to skip out on paying when they do not have to scramble up loose change). In one month alone, the solar powered parking meters brought in a $230,000 increase in revenue, which on a yearly level translates into $2.5 million additional dollars for the city. The financial advantages of the IPS Group parking meters are limited to an increase in revenue however. Contrary to typical practice of simply selling the meters to a city, the company allowed for a more cost effective lease to own program. This allows for cities using the meters to bring in revenue immediately, without having to pay off the hefty price tag of normal technology upgrade.
In the fight against the environmental issues, parking meters seem like an unlikely hero, but in the case of IPS Group’s solar powered parking meters, that is just the case. The impact of these new parking meters can be seen instantly, which is very apparent with the quickly generated revenue Los Angeles experienced in the first month of their use. Additionally, the lease to own program allows for cities to invest in green technology when budget difficulties would usually not allow doing so. The convenience and effectiveness of solar powered parking meters has appealed to many cities throughout the country; cities such as Denver, Washington, D.C. and over 40 other cities all implement IPG Group parking meters.
