Montreal Parking Meters Run Linux 506
jbecherv writes "According to LinuxDevices.com, new-fangled Montreal parking meters run embedded Linux (Google Cache). The City of Montreal is planning to roll out 500 to 800 wireless, solar-powered parking payment stations based on embedded Linux. There is even a
device profile
(Google Cache) that show some details about the meters... These meters run kernel 2.4.19 on a 206MHz StrongARM SA-1110. Each system has 64MB of RAM, boots from a CF device, and is networked wirelessly via GPRS."
Solar powered? (Score:5, Interesting)
Hummm (Score:2, Interesting)
how hackable is something like this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Solar powered? (Score:2, Interesting)
Detroit parking meters (Score:4, Interesting)
exploits... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I know little about embedded devices (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:great. (Score:0, Interesting)
Isn't it London that has some sort of tax for people traveling into downtown with a car? If I remember right they said it works wonderfully.
it would be cool... (Score:4, Interesting)
spare MHz? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:great. (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who learned to drive on the crazy downtown streets of Montreal, I feel I can happily endorse city's public transit.
Where is the soruce code? (Score:5, Interesting)
The Device Profile [linuxdevices.com] states, "The stations run a Linux distribution that 8D developed in-house." Where is the source code? I searched:
8D [8d.com]
http://www.8d.com/ [8d.com]
But couldn't find anything. How can we efficiently build on 8D's [8d.com] work to build a better, competitive parking meter without the code?
Re:Solar powered? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea how much (if any) money this saves, but I think its really cool... and got way too excited about it the first time I noticed it.
parking tickets (Score:5, Interesting)
Another reason to steal parking meters... (Score:5, Interesting)
In Montreal, it will be geeks with hacksaws. Rather than being tossed into a lake, the parking meters will show up in a home-built robot.
Parking meters are not more reliable (Score:4, Interesting)
There was an article in the Seattle PI today [nwsource.com] about Seattle's plans to do this exact same change:
The article also talks about how Portland made the same switchover, and the successes they had:
Neil
Re:Simple and Reliable (Score:2, Interesting)
This is nothing new. As a matter of fact its a more efficient way to handle it. Instead of one meter to every spot there is one meter per block or so. I don't know what the going rate is on a traditional parking meter but I guarantee one more expensive unit is cheaper than 20 lesser units......when you figure the maintenance costs and the costs involved in emptying said units. It takes less time for the metermaid to check, therefore more time they have to be checking the other units. It makes more efficient use of thier time. With the addition of roadbed sensors the parking meters could alert the metermaids to violators whose time has run out but the vehicle hasn't moved, resulting increased revenue from parking offenders.(not likely but an option)
There is the additional benefit where people can use alternative methods for payment. Having to put a quarter in a machine sucks....but if I can pay 2 dollars for an hour with my creditcard...it doesn't seem like that much. Its the same psycology behind pokerchips at a casino. Separate the value from the currency and people are more likely to spend more. Its on the card....I can pay for it later. P) Not saying I like the idea, but your basis for calling it a bad one is kind of unfounded. Look at it from the view of the City. Politics aside...the goal is to make money from parking.
Re:Snow powered? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Is it just me... (Score:3, Interesting)
how about doing an rtfa?
an overly simple parking meter of course wouldn't need more than one timer circuit, but how about you take a look at the article and see what it can do? gprs connectivity, pay anywhere from the city(for time extension you don't need to get back to your car), ticket maids can get the map of paid/not-paid parking slots to their handheld devices (they can check while just driving past the parking lot), cc handling..
Re:Solar powered? (Score:2, Interesting)
Lemme guess... you lost your excitement when you realized that:
1 - Unit won't jam and flash out of order like the old lollipop looking meters if you stick pennies into it.
2 - You can't just top up the meter any time you want. You have to wait as close to the expiry on the ticket to get a new slip in order to prevent overlap and wastage of money.
3 - You can't use someone else's time on the meter since they drive off with the ticket/receipt or you can't be nice and give it to someone else easily.
I wonder what the cost analysis is on these new ones vs. the old mechanical lollipops.
Those requied guys to go around and collect change, unjam gum and coins every now and again.
The new solar ones require a wireless connection, initial outlay, VISA/MC/AMEX/etc accounts, someone to still go around and collect change, unjam, repair and refill paper. Plus they don't work terribly well when it gets to 20 below freezing.
Geez, I wish I was the shmuck who came up with that idea.
Q Temperature? (Score:4, Interesting)
Solar powered is great, but what happens when those Montreal winters come blasting?
Most batteries don't fare well as the temperature plummets towards -40, either.
Re:Not cool from city's point of view (Score:2, Interesting)
The benefit of the Toronto system is there is never any residual time on the meter. If you pay for 2 hours because you only have a $2 coin and then drive away after 20 minutes, the next guy gets no free time.
I guess the Montreal folks determined that they'll make more money from the increased speed in finding non paying parkers than they would have with the overpayment scheme that Toronto has.
Bastards.
Sounds good to me. (Score:2, Interesting)
1 . I could see it as very useful especially if they program these up to send SMS messages to your cell phone when time is about to expire and allow you to recharge the meters via your cell phone.
2. Turn them into potential advertising machines. The LCD screens can run mini commercials on a small screen and generate more money for the city. I can also see this as a perk, you get free parking for watching the ads and responding to the questions just to ensure you're really watching the ads.
3. Have them accept smart cards or credit cards only. This would eliminate the need to hire people to manually go to each meter and collect money out of them.
4. Set them up to take a picture of your plates when your meter runs out they could just send you a parking ticket to the address of the vehicle's owner. This could save money by eliminating parking enforcement officers and making easy money for all those expired meters that enforcement officers never catch.
The cool possibilities are endless. I just hope that they figure out a way to keep them secure from people like me and the rest of the
Re:Instructions (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, they would probably have batteries to keep them running during periods of no sun... Otherwise, free parking on cloudy days, or you put in your money, come back and have a parking ticket because a cloud passed over the sun and reset the meter.
malice (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Imagine... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not cool from city's point of view (Score:3, Interesting)
The scam in my city is "street cleaning days". In the 20 years I've lived here I've seen an actual street cleaning machine on my block only once. Yet up to 60% of the parking spaces will be unavilable on any given day due to street cleaning revenue enhancement. The might as well just issue a parking permit, charge $200 for it and be done with it. It would be cheaper for those of us whom work nights.
These machines suck (Score:5, Interesting)
There's one meter per block, at each parking spot there's a sign with a number. A123 or A435, B342, etc. You read your number, go to ANY machine in Montreal, punch in that number and you can put money in your meter. Now this is where they got greedy. They got sick of people using leftover time from previous 'customers' so any time you add money to a specific spot it resets to 0.
So if there is 2 hours on the machine and I want to add an hour (you can only have a max of 3 hours) I will have to pay for the full 3 hours. Furthermore you can not see how much money is left on the meter except by looking at the ticket it prints.
So if you have class and need to add a bit of money to the meter so it'll last till the end of class you have to add the full amount since it will restart.
Now for the mischief. There's nothing stopping you from punching in someone else's number, adding 25 cents and reducing there time to 15 minutes! Essentially guaranteeing a ticket.
So if someone has 3 hours on there meter, and you come by and put in 25 cents it will go to 15 minutes. This can be handy to use against people you don't like or just random strangers with nice cars, etc. Anyways it seems like a big problem.
The only thing I was thinking is that maybe the machine will keep track of the OLD value as well as the new value to prevent this, but it's still screwing over people who want to add money to their own meter.
Re:Solar powered? (Score:3, Interesting)
That surcharge may be worth it. How much do they save by not needing to empty the coinbox as often.
Ticket Scalpers (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Are they complying with the GPL? (Score:1, Interesting)
However, as mentioned above, if I make changes to a kernel for something I'm selling, the only people I have to distribute source code to are my customers. This is important, and often overlooked, since plenty of people also, kindly, allow free downloads of source code for their GPL projects. This, however, is not because the GPL requires it. It's because they consider everyone their customer.
Businesses like this distribute their products to a handful of organizations. They must include the source code, or an offer for the source code. They do Not have to make source code downloadable on their website, or even offer it to people Not buying their product.
Naturally, though, if you were to buy their product, request and obtain their source code, you are fully within your rights to redistribute that code freely to others, in compliance with the GPL. You can put it up for download on your website, or you can, in turn, only make it available to your customers, ad nauseum.
Re:You guys aren't getting it (Score:3, Interesting)
RAM and flash measured in _bytes_, CPU's under 10MHz continue to sell a lot. And yes, they are quite a bit cheaper than something like these (which seems to be basically guts of a high-end PDA)
Of course you don't find any of those at store, they don't belong there, they are embedded system components, found at electronics store, not something you pick up from shelves at wallmart.
As whether or not you'll save a "significant amount of money" depends mostly on the volume, $10 vs $50 CPU is't much of a difference if you're building one unit and design costs far overweight everything else, but if you're making a million of 'em, that's a lot of cash. There's a place for everything.