City fix for meters puts an end to free parking spaces

The city is nearing its goal of installing about 4,200 4G-enabled parking meters across urban Honolulu, from Chinatown to Waikiki, by the end of this year.

The installation of the new parking meters follows problems which began in January when about 2,200 wireless credit-card parking meters — which used 2G and 3G technology — became inoperable after carrier Verizon implemented a 4G upgrade.

Due to that switchover, Honolulu was forced to offer free parking at affected meters for nine months, from January to September. During that period of unpaid parking, the city estimates it lost about $1.7 million in revenue. Those free city metered spaces will end Monday.

But this week, city Department of Transportation Services Director Roger Morton said past issues with older parking meters will be remedied as new equipment comes online, following the city’s procurement of additional parking meter “control heads” for its municipal system.

“So we have installed about 2,100 additional meter heads to make our formerly digital 2G meters compatible now,” Morton said during a news conference inside DTS offices Wednesday afternoon. “These are more advanced models that have more capacity than our last parking meters did.”

Likewise, the city will continue to upgrade its coin-only meters to enable credit card payment.

“We’re converting the last 2,100 meters that we have to be fully digital,” he added, “so that all of our meters on-street and in our off-street lots will be converted by end of year, so that they will also be capable of taking credit cards.”

Those newly installed parking meters will be in locations along King Street and other parts of town, he said.

In addition, greater enforcement over the city’s parking meters will also begin, starting Monday. Tickets for parking meter violations here typically cost $35, according to the Honolulu Police Department.

“And to clarify, there are still parking meters that are coin-operated, those will be enforced as well,” HPD Maj. Stason Tanaka said at the news conference. “We will be enforcing on- and off-street parking.”

Under a $3.5 million contract with San Diego-based manufacturer IPS Group, the new parking meters come with multiple functionalities, allowing users to pay for parking with credit cards or through a mobile payment app, Park Smarter, the city’s only parking payment app, which debuted in February, the city says.

Besides the Park Smarter app, the new meters accept credit and debit cards, coins, as well as other mobile payment services like Apple Pay and Google Pay, the city says.

Meanwhile, the city is trying to fix other problems with its older parking meter system.

Previously, the city placed sticker decals on its parking meters for Park Smarter app users to download the app and pay for parking. But in April, the city discovered fraudulent payment stickers had been placed on many parking meters which took users to a fake website instead of the city’s official app or app stores.

“It was a clever ruse or scam where someone actually set up a website that was different from the authorized website,” Morton said.

Now, the new meters have QR codes and Meter ID numbers installed on small electronic screens found on individual parking meters.

“For app purposes, you need to have the meter number in order to make sure that you’re paying for the right meter,” he said, adding that information will be displayed on the parking meter screen to eliminate “that type of fraudulent abuse.”

Still, he said, no one who might have used the fraudulent payment stickers were deemed victims of money fraud, while no arrests were made as part of these parking meter scams.

“We determined that scam very quickly after it started,” he said, “and, to the best of our knowledge, we can’t find any instances where customers lost money.”

He added that the new parking meters are secure against future cyber-related threats.

“It is our requirement, by our contract, that it meets the highest level of cybersecurity,” he said. “The vendor is a global vendor, and that’s a standard requirement.”

Morton noted that Honolulu’s parking meters generate approximately $5 million in revenues to the city each year.

For more information on city parking, visit honolulu.gov/transportation/resources/parking.html.