Along with taking coins, parking meters in downtown Scranton may soon be able to accept credit cards for payment, officials said.
The city is preparing to lease its on-street parking meters to a private firm, Central Parking Systems, that would operate and manage the meters, Mayor Chris Doherty said.
Central Parking is the same outside firm that was hired last year by a court-appointed receiver to operate the Scranton Parking Authority's five parking garages.
The city plans to enter a contract with Central Parking regarding the city-owned meters, though no such pact has been finalized and the details of how it all would work have not been determined, the mayor said.
However, in general, "we'll still own the meters, and Central Parking will manage them," Mr. Doherty said.
The city last year had been planning to undertake parking-meter "enhancements" as a way to generate more revenue, and received two bids from meter firms for such upgrades. However, a contract was never awarded as the project became sidelined by the city's financial crisis, the mayor said. By late last year, the cash-strapped city decided instead to pursue an arrangement with Central Parking to oversee the meters, he said.
One of the firms that had submitted a bid for meter enhancements, IPS Group of San Diego, has been watching and waiting for the situation to evolve to the point where Central Parking will be managing the city's meters and may be purchasing off-the-shelf, coin/credit-card equipment from IPS for meter upgrades, said Frank Del Monaco, IPS's general manager of East Coast operations.
"From IPS' standpoint, we're eagerly anticipating getting in there, but we've got to get the go-ahead first," he said. "Central Parking would be the management entity, and they would come to us to provide the equipment they need."
Efforts to reach a representative of Central Parking were unsuccessful.
While a credit-card alternative would provide another payment option for parkers, another goal is to eventually have meters accept payments via smartphones and to have enforcement personnel monitor meters remotely, Mr. Doherty said.
Technology has advanced greatly in recent years while parking-meter policy has stagnated, Mr. Del Monaco said. For example, many coin meters are geared for a two-hour time limit to create turnover, but modern technology allows for other options, he said.
"A lot of policies were generated with older-style meters, which were limited in what they could do. Now, you could do a progressive rate system, instead of hourly."
Contact the writer: jlockwood@timesshamrock.com