
Meter Feeder (YC W16) lets you ditch coins and codes, pay for parking with GPS - heezo
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/18/meter-feeder/
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normanjoyner
Wow, this is great - I started using Meter Feeder a few months ago in
Pittsburgh. I'm sure Pittsburgh is similar to most of the country in that
we've had no choice but to use antiquated meters. It really is one of those
situations where since it's now easy, I've found myself always paying for
parking, whereas before I skipped on payment more often than not.

Looking forward to watching Meter Feeder execute on its goals, and congrats on
the acceptance to YC W16!

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heezo
Thanks, Norman. We've recently rolled out to a few more areas around
Pittsburgh. Looks like there are another five, in Southwester PA, switching to
us over the next few months.

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stegosaurus
The only time I've ever had a parking ticket (80GBP) was in an area that only
accepted payment via phone call.

I had no signal, so I decided to leave the vehicle and go to work, I'll pay
for it when I get back, humans are generally reasonable folk, aren't they.
Came back to a ticket and invested about an hour in trying to fight it before
giving up.

Since then I am extremely skeptical of 'paying for parking' in general and
have tried to find free bays. I'm willing to pay a few quid for parking, I'm
not willing to risk a ticket (and the associated general angst at some
bureaucrat having the power to arbitrarily steal money from me).

I'd appreciate a system that sent me a bill in the post for sitting in a spot
and required payment within 2 weeks or something. Penalties for non-immediate-
payment seem like an oddly antagonistic policy at this point, given that we
have a nationwide database linking car plates to owners.

This is probably all different in the US, just adding my 2p. :)

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timemachine
Hi. I agree! Parking is a hassle everywhere, even in the US. Meter Feeder is
working to challenge the pain points of parking and create a new and better
way.

One of the goals of our system has always been to augment existing systems
instead of replacing them.

\- Dan, Meter Feeder CTO

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heezo
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.

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dd9990
You collect a lot of data about people - their location (and therefore travel
patterns), license plate etc. What's your privacy policy with regards to
location data collected? Will you disclose if your database is requested by
the authorities? How long is the data stored for? Will you be monetizing that
data? Your FAQ doesn't address this.

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heezo
Great question. We only store the data the the municipality needs to enforce
tickets. All personal data is stored directly on the phone.

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mchahn
> 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.

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heezo
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.

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

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heezo
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.

