
Sydney Declutters Parking Signs with E-Ink - qzervaas
http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/07/sydney-declutters-traffic-signs-by-using-e-ink/399050/
======
tomohawk
Definitely could be abused.

I once parked my car on a street with no parking restriction signs anywhere. I
went back to the car to get something a few hours later and they were placing
signs down the street. As soon as a sign was placed, they would ticket the
cars nearby. I moved my car just in time.

With this tech, they could do this at will. Probably correlated with whenever
the people running the city want more money.

~~~
Intermernet
Don't worry, it's probably hackable as well.

Give it 6 months and someone will have modified these signs. Probably in a
crude, old Nokia phone cabled to the back of the sign, method.

Hopefully it will be seen as a useful signpost (no pun intended) for the
ongoing challenge of distributing digital info to an, on average, trusting
public.

Don't be surprised if you see some unlimited parking in Sydney next April 1st.

~~~
bradjohnson
I feel like that would require about as much effort as going out and replacing
a non-hackable sign with a convincing homemade one.

~~~
mprovost
Someone famously did this in LA:

[http://jalopnik.com/5516635/the-secret-of-las-10-year-old-
fa...](http://jalopnik.com/5516635/the-secret-of-las-10-year-old-fake-freeway-
sign)

~~~
bradjohnson
A little less of a public service than your example, but I live in Vancouver
and I was thinking of this when I said that:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude_Chilling_Park](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dude_Chilling_Park)

------
DrStalker
Compared to a sign like this it's much easier to read:
[http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2014/01/23/1226809/0832...](http://resources2.news.com.au/images/2014/01/23/1226809/083282-c8e11858-83bd-11e3-90a9-2f6f5b597dd3.jpg)

The big downside is when you park you don't just need to know the conditions
when you park, you need to know the conditions for the entire length of your
intended stay. You also need confidence that the signs will remain unchanging
throughout your stay because if the signs update and you get a ticket the
burden of proof is going to fall on you to prove your innocence.

~~~
txdv
Make a picture of it?

~~~
nickonline
Take a picture of your car in the parking spot every time you park somewhere?
Seems a little excessive?

------
matevzmihalic
I work at Visionect and have helped develop the eink platform for these signs.
They can be changed with whichever frequency is required, more frequently or
less so (once a day etc). And while the technology is one thing, as mentioned
before, good design is the one that can eliminate any confusion that people
may have on how long the restrictions may last. There's more info on our
website if you're interested:
[http://v.visionect.com/sydney_epaper_road_signs](http://v.visionect.com/sydney_epaper_road_signs)

~~~
chippy
Oddly, that link did not render anything for me. Removing the querystring made
the article appear.

[https://www.visionect.com/blog/worlds-first-epaper-
traffic-s...](https://www.visionect.com/blog/worlds-first-epaper-traffic-
signs)

Edits - hmm, not even that link when clicked from here renders anything. I
have to manually refresh or copy and paste it to get things to show.

------
jasonkester
Seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

Park car, read sign: cool to park here.

Return to car with ticket, read sign: no parking, huge fine.

It's like those quick change speed limit signs the evil sheriff from the dukes
of hazard would put up to generate speeding tickets.

~~~
bradjohnson
It doesn't seem like it would bode well for a city to be purposefully and
maliciously scamming the residents through parking fines. The current method
of obfuscation and confusion with legal deniability would probably work better
legally. It would be pretty easy to prove in court that the signs were
changing at incorrect times also.

~~~
djrogers
> It doesn't seem like it would bode well for a city to be purposefully and
> maliciously scamming the residents through parking fines.

You haven't spent much time in San Francisco, have you? The parking violation
system is corrupt, mobbed up, malicious, and I'm amazed that there hasn't been
an axe-handles and pitchforks style fix to it.

------
some1else
The company that provided these (Visionect) also sells affordable e-ink
developer kits [1]. The best part is that you can build apps in plain HTML,
JavaScript and CSS.

Disclosure: I worked with Visionect a few years ago to develop an e-ink
restaurant menu.

[1]
[https://www.visionect.com/development_kits](https://www.visionect.com/development_kits)

~~~
aleem
Got me excited there for a minute until I checked the price. I can't help but
think this is way over-priced. The 6" DIY kit from Visionect is ~$600.

The latest 6" Kindle with WiFi is ~$80 (on Prime Day it was going for ~$50).
Given that it has WiFi and there are some Jailbreaks for Kindle you could get
a Kindle to do this same thing. If you want better contrast you could upgrade
to the Kindle Paperwhite for $120. That's anywhere from 8% to 20% of the cost
of the Visionect system.

EDIT: Turns out the Kindle can do quite a bit including running a web server,
web browser, SSH and much more so this should be easily doable.

[1]:
[http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128704](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128704)

~~~
some1else
You do know that the Kindle is subsidized by book sales, right? That and the
fact that Amazon has both economies of scale and a zero-profit/market-
domination strategy.

The Visionect kit is cheaper, more capable and better supported than
comparable dev kits.

~~~
dublinben
The Kindle might be subsidized in a general sense, but Amazon does not sell
the devices at a loss. The base hardware cost is roughly equal to the selling
price.[0] I would expect something similar from a barebones developer kit.

[0] [https://www.mainstreet.com/article/exclusive-
amazon-s-79-kin...](https://www.mainstreet.com/article/exclusive-
amazon-s-79-kindle-touch-costs-84-make)

------
hussong
Pipe dream: municipalities make parking permission data available over an API,
app makers create an app that shows you the current rules for your location,
you can figure out the situation at the push of a button and the data provided
is legally binding.

~~~
danieltillett
Why would any municipality want this? The aim is to raise revenue and making
it easier for people to avoid a fine is not going to help revenue.

Pipe dream 2: The populace rises up and refuses to pay any fine unless the
data is available via an API and legally binding.

~~~
jon-wood
Despite conspiracy theories its more likely that the aim is to avoid
congestion at peak times, and control demand for parking, but hey, its a
government policy, so has to be evil by default. Everyone should just be able
to do whatever they like, and let the free market economy ensure only the rich
live well.

~~~
danieltillett
Making such information is not going to affect any of the purported reasons
for having parking restrictions it will only reduce the risk that someone will
park somewhere by accident. If anything making the parking restrictions
clearer and more accessible can only reduce the level of congestion since
people won’t be parking somewhere they should not by accident. The only thing
affected would be revenue.

------
Cogito
I haven't been able to find much more information apart from the press release
at

[http://www.digitalsignageconnection.com/australian-road-
and-...](http://www.digitalsignageconnection.com/australian-road-and-maritime-
services-installs-traffic-signs-electronic-ink-850)

From what I can see, nothing specifically states that the signs are intended
to be changed extremely frequently, nor that the information displayed is
strictly for _right now_.

With good design and usage, issues like not knowing if you will be able to
park in the signposted area in two hours time become less likely. The ability
to change the signs frequently doesn't mean that they will. The examples shown
tended to be things like

* No parking during Sunday markets

* No parking from 3pm - 11pm on a special event day

Obviously these _could_ be abused, or used poorly, but I wouldn't say that
they are bad because of that fact.

------
barbs
Would've thought it'd be better (and cheaper) to implement this:

[http://priceonomics.com/a-designers-war-on-misleading-
parkin...](http://priceonomics.com/a-designers-war-on-misleading-parking-
signs/)

~~~
pbreit
Neither solution seems much better than what we mostly have already.

~~~
jasonlotito
Yeah, in either case, I'm still confused. The e-ink one shows examples that
are confusing. The one linked to here in the comments shows a designers
attempt at packing all that information in.

The reality is, I want to know one thing: How long can I park here.

Maybe the length of time is 0 (No parking). You show: No Parking.

Maybe it's for the next 4 hours: Parking 4 Hours Remaining. Or maybe you put
the time when it ends: Parking until 6 AM.

Maybe it's only for people with tag 13-A: Parking 13-A Only.

Either you can park someplace, or you can't. You can have the complete rules
if people want to plan ahead, but they shouldn't be what people need to read
while driving around trying to find a parking spot.

------
donatj
I seriously don't understand why such complicated parking rules are needed to
begin with? I can understand a single (e.g. 9-5) set of times for Monday
through Friday and a separate one for the weekend, but such more complex ones
as I see it serve no real purpose other than ticketing people who have trouble
interpreting the signs.

~~~
techsupporter
Because curb space in an urban environment is a very limited resource and the
city government determines how the competing interests are going to share it.

One set of signs I pass rather often in Seattle looks (and probably is)
complicated, but the reasoning behind it makes some sense. It is against a
yellow-painted curb and says:

\- No parking 6a-9a / 3p-7p except Sat/Sun/Hol

\- 30-minute loading only 9a-3p / 7p-10p except Sat/Sun/Hol

\- 3-minute loading only 9a-11a Sun

\- <\----- No parking

Why? The adjoining property is a large church that sits on what is now a major
arterial route near businesses. In order, the restrictions allow for commute
hours traffic in that lane, reserve a zone for deliveries during the rest of
the hours in a weekday, reserve a zone for parishioners to get out at the door
of the church, and foreclose parking that is too close to the corner and a
fire hydrant. Parking is, implicitly, allowed all day on Saturday when commute
hours aren't in effect, some of the businesses are closed and the remainder
are receiving fewer/no deliveries, and the church isn't in session.

------
cstrat
By the looks of the photos, none of the street signs are normal parking zone
signs, but rather special event signage.

Those are only used for special events and don't change very often. This is a
good example for their use. I agree with what others have said about the risks
and concerns if this were to be used for ALL parking signs.

------
Angostura
When I go driving on alpine roads, I frequently see 'warning ice' or 'warning
deep snow' signs, which are quite amusing in summer.

I've often thought that printing the signs using liquid crystal technology
would be useful, so ice warnings would only be visible when the temperature
was at least close to 0C

~~~
btbuildem
Falling ice hazard is highest in the spring, with temperatures above zero and
ice accumulated over winter.

------
pluma
The problem isn't space but complexity. This isn't making things easier, it's
just hiding complexity.

~~~
Qwertious
It's streamlining the interface, only showing the info that's currently
relevant.

~~~
alandarev
During week days I often pay attention to signs while I am walking/driving
through to keep in mind if I will be able to park there on Saturday or Sunday.
With these new signs - that would be impossible.

~~~
JoshTriplett
You also wouldn't know if you can park after the sign changes in general. If
it says you can park from 3 to 11PM, what do you do if you arrive at 10:30 and
you want to know what happens at 11? With a sign that shows all the
requirements, it might say that parking costs money from 3-11 and after that
it's free, or it might say that you can't park at all after 11. With these
signs, you don't know until 11.

------
detritus
_squints_

Public signage typically has high visual contrast, doesn't it? The dynamic,
somewhat critical information these are displaying is tragically muddy and
hard to resolve, even from some of these photos here.

A shame. Before seeing the end-result, I thought it was a cracking-good idea.

~~~
bradjohnson
I'm not really seeing your perspective, it seems clear to me. I'll reserve
final judgement for if I ever see them in person, but from the three images in
the article I saw no problems.

~~~
vacri
In that second photo, the e-ink contrast fails web accessibility standards.
Background is #889294, darkest foreground I found was #5e6669 (most foreground
was not this dark)

[http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/](http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/)

Or easier: compare to the signs around it. It's _much_ less readable. Traffic
signs aren't like Funky Website Of The Month. It's not okay for traffic signs
to just ignore inconvenient users - so even if they were skirting some
visibility standards, it wouldn't be good enough. They need to be _really
clear_ , not barely passable (and this sign isn't even that).

And this photo is reasonably lit, without overcast conditions, mist, or rain.
People often forget to include those when discussing road-related things like
speed limits or signage.

~~~
bradjohnson
Traffic signs? Sure. But what was shown in the article was a replacement for
confusing parking signs which would be much less critical for passing cars to
immediately be able to discern.

I really think that regardless of how much you need to squint to make out a
parking sign it would still be better than some of those monstrosities that
have about 20 exceptions depending on the time of day.

~~~
vacri
The signs in the article photos will do nothing to reduce confusion around
parking signs. They're all special-purpose Clearway signs. The intent of the
sign is not in the e-ink part; that bit only gives you some timing
information. As a result, it has no bearing on the problem of locations with
multiple parking rules - it is still 'just another rule'.

Have a look at their sample photos. Two of the photos have the sign by
themselves. This clears up what kind of confusion? How are they better then a
normal sign in this location? The remaining photo has two other signs, which
work together fine with a non-e-ink version of the e-ink sign. Hardly a
monstrosity.

The only advantage the photographed sign really has is that the council can
easily change the details on it between different roadwork events, without
having to glue a new set of numbers on it.

------
vog
After seeing all those enthusiatic comments, I was very disappointed when I
saw what this is actually about.

I was expecting something like changing marks on the street, maybe even auto-
rearranging parking lot marks. That's what I imagined "E-Ink" / "electronic
ink" to be. However, it's just a display within a sign.

Not sure about other cities, but at Berlin's highways, we have this for years.
It is used to adjust speed limits to traffic, avoiding or dewarping traffic
jams. It is also used to block lanes as needed, e.g. during the time tunnels
are cleaned, without having to put up signs and moving them with the workers
while cleaning.

What is so spectacular about using same old idea for parking signs?

Am I missing something?

~~~
some1else
You are referring to high-intensity LED lights. E-ink does not shine,
therefore it requires significantly less power:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink)

~~~
vog
Thanks for clarifying. Now it makes a lot more sense where this comes from.

