I can see the "real" conversations between the sales person and city officials. "We can tell you when and where exactly the parking violations is happening and guide enforcers directly to that car. This is not an expense, it is a revenue generating machine."
Every $1000 investment generate $xxxx ARR ticket revenue - easy math.
Public parking isn't going anywhere, so if this program can pay for itself by increasing parking revenue, while decreasing costs that it takes to generate that revenue (IE, more efficient checking of meters), then all the other civic benefits this data/program can create come "free". Such as improving fire response times, while decreasing cost of services:
>It would be easier if we could use the traffic signals and street lights to clear the road from Point A to Point B, and then have the [streetlight] system detect how the fire truck is moving through the street, restoring traffic flow behind it. That would save us money on fire stations, because we build them based on response times. Improving response times means we might not need as many stations.
The cynics will say this is will be used as excuse to remove resources for fire fighters, but if it can be done responsibly, and the data shows that outcomes will improve (and that outcomes do improve after implementing), I'm all for it.
The worst of it is that all the infrastructure is in place already for average speed enforcement on toll roads, since you know when everyone gets on and off the highway and all their license plates. But isn't the whole point of a toll road that you pay for the privilege of being out of traffic and going as fast as you can? Who wants to pay for a toll transponder only to get a bunch of speeding tickets in the mail the next month?
So the speed limit may be 25 but if the prevailing traffic indicates that everyone thinks 40 is OK then you can't get ticketed for keeping up with traffic.
I see this issue come up all the time in Palo Alto where I live: people want the speed limit enforced on, say, Embarcadero Rd, but if the the city were to do so they'd have to do a traffic survey which would actually tell them to raise the limit on the signs.
There was a wave of sensible lawmaking in California that was sadly abandoned in the Wilson+ era and has never come back.
+ I don't mean Wilson was the cause, though he was a bad one; he got elected in part because people forgot about being sensible in the regard.
oh! that probably explains why i never in the almost 20 years here got tickets in such a situation, and i thought that i'm just good at spotting police cars (and slamming on the brakes each time i see a one) - here they are much easier to spot because they don't hide cheetah style in roadside bush like the traffic policemen do back in Russia.
Also in California "speed traps" are illegal: this is when a highway runs through a town or district and the district puts up a sudden "25 MPH" sign so they can catch out of towners and charge them money.
Adding too many lights and stop signs speeds traffic up rather than slowing it. Fortunately Cal. seems still (mostly) to hew to the "listen popular opinions to decide what to focus on; listen to actual domain experts to decide what action to take".
Hard limits are strange for things that are continuous and probabilistic. If we could set an automatic fee equivalent to the cost of increased risks, pollution, etc., it'd be a function of speed. Someday we'll have the technology to communicate that back to the driver as they change speed and location from urban to rural, go through construction zones, etc.
Of course, setting an appropriate gasoline tax, paid at the pump, would reduce the value of those fees.
Heck, maybe it's time to go back to 55 as a federal limit. Last I checked, most vehicles on the road get dramatically better gas mileage at 55. Rather, it gets exponentially worse as speeds increase past 60ish due to wind resistance.
Data doesn't back you up. In places where they have raised the speed limit, the overall flow speed does not increase correspondingly.
People drive at the speed they deem safe irrespective of the speed limit.
I would gladly pay the $1 fee to park for 30 minutes in my downtown. However, I often skip paying because of the hassle of walking to the pay station, waiting several minutes to complete the transaction, and then putting the receipt back in my car.
If they just detected by license and sent me a bill, they could have my money!
The only downside, as you would expect, is that you have a new app or two for every city you travel to. It works pretty well though, and it’s way better than having to hunt down a kiosk.
I’m actually pretty surprised that kind of thing hasn’t caught on more here. I’m sure there are at least a few cities in the USA that do it.
https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2017/11/29/in-portland-you...
Many jurisdictions are already doing lpr driven ticketing. A guy drives down the street, he parks at the end and prints the tickets.
I'm not under the impression that indirect is the most common system, as every car that I have owned has used a direct system.