TheLowDown Monthly Newsletter                May 28, 2008

Parking Meter Company Creates New Business Model with Wi-Fi

Photo Violation Technologies deploys a Cisco Outdoor Wireless Solution to offer cities new revenues and services

Business Challenge

Photo Violation Technologies Corp. makes life easier for anyone who has ever had to feed a parking meter, or any city that has had to maintain one. The Canadian company's PhotoViolationMeter is a "smart" parking meter that allows drivers to pay with cash, credit card, debit card, or with a cell phone. The meters even include a grace period for drivers who overpark by a few minutes. But if a driver fails to pay the parking fee, the meter takes a photograph of the car's license plate. Then, the meter wirelessly sends the photo to the municipal agency that maintains violations. Company officials have proven that the high-tech meters bring in five times the revenue of traditional parking meters, both because the technology makes it easier for drivers to pay, and because it is easier to catch those drivers who do not pay.

Network Solution

In a wireless mesh outdoor solution, the network dynamically routes packets from node to node (or access point to access point). A few nodes have to be connected directly to the wired network, but the rest share a connection with one another over the air. The fact that wiring issues are mitigated made such a network ideal for a municipal deployment of wireless parking meters; and the fact that Wi-Fi operates in an unlicensed band meant that the company would not have to worry about spectrum fees.

Several startup vendors offered mesh solutions, but Photo Violation wanted a vendor that could handle a large-scale deployment. The company also needed to plan for the future. If the Niagara Falls trial garnered interest from several other cities, the company needed an equipment vendor that could serve multiple large customers at once.

"We looked at a variety of companies," Mitschele says. "But we knew that the scale of the project required a company that was both reliable and scalable. That's why we chose Cisco."

With the help of a systems integrator, Photo Violation deployed some 50 Cisco® Aironet® 1500 Series lightweight outdoor mesh access point on light poles across a two-square-mile trial area in Niagara Falls; these access points are centrally controlled by a Cisco 4400 series Wireless LAN controller. Each parking meter is equipped with a Wi-Fi radio that communicates with the mesh access points. The Wi-Fi technology is clearly faster than GPRS.

The Cisco wireless outdoor solution also offers the ability to support multiple SSIDs (service set identifiers), giving the mesh the ability to support multiple applications at once. And the Cisco network can also support multiple VLANs, helping keep parking meter traffic secure and separate from any other traffic on the network. In fact, Photo Violation soon realized that it could offer more than wireless parking meter services to its municipal customers: its customers could also use the network for wireless Internet access.

Business Results

Not only can Niagara Falls vastly increase its revenue from parking fees, but the city has also a gained a reputation as a tech-savvy host. Visitors can now get free Internet access from their hotel rooms. The city plans to expand the two-square-mile trial into a city-wide deployment. Photo Violation and city officials are discussing plans to offer additional municipal services on the wireless outdoor access points, such as in-vehicle, IP-based video surveillance or wireless meter reading.

Photo Violation is conducting WiCity and parking meter trials in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and at the University of British Columbia Endowment Lands. Mitschele says that the company also has heard from some 50 other cities worldwide that are interested in deploying wireless parking meters and offering free Wi-Fi.

Next Steps

Joining the parking management and Wi-Fi businesses has proven so successful that Photo Violation and Cisco are discussing the possibility of installing access point technology directly into the PhotoViolationMeters, so that they work both as parking meters and as Internet access points, Mitschele says.

And although parking management is still Photo Violation's core business, the company continues to explore its future as a Wi-Fi service provider.

"We're going to try to put together a service in which we offer municipal Wi-Fi VoIP phone services for a low monthly fee," Mitschele says, noting that Cisco offers superior billing and provisioning tools for Wi-Fi service providers. (News@Cisco)

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