William McGowan, senior in pre-business, pays for his parking Monday at the business parking ramp meter. Wireless electronic parking meters are starting to replace the old, coin operated units. This may lead to paying overlimit parking meters over the phone with a credit card.

A wireless, electronic pay-parking system is starting to replace original, coin-operated parking meters, and whether Iowa State will adopt the new technology is undecided.

The University of California at Santa Barbara is the first place in the United States to implement this electronic pay-parking system called Intellipay, which was developed by IBM, according to a recent MSNBC article.

Once a driver parks his or her car, they call a toll free number, entering the digits of the parking stall number and then giving their credit card number.

When the time on the meter is close to expiration, the meter calls the driver’s phone, therefore giving them a chance to return to the meter and pay with the credit card.

A call is made, however, to the parking enforcement officers at the same time, giving them a chance to beat you to the meter and hand out a ticket, the story said.

Steve Russell, associate professor in electrical and computer engineering, said he was unsure if this type of parking payment system would be implemented at Iowa State.

“It’s a system that involves upfront expenditure where Iowa State has to pay for the services,” he said. “The question is, How much revenue does Iowa State lose by not tagging people who do not pay?”

Russell said he does not think it would be financially wise to implement Intellipay at Iowa State parking lots.

According to the MSNBC article, UC-Santa Barbara said it increased university parking revenue by 37 percent from the electronic pay-parking system.

“I’m surprised they are saving 30 percent,” Russell said.

One complaint Russell said he has with these coin-free parking meters is they have a server on the telephone system that keeps track of parking spaces, but when the time has expired, the system will think there are open meters when, in actuality, a person could still be parked there over the allotted time.

“The system could still show a parking space is open in cases when it’s not,” Russell said.

He said it would be easy to insert a censor on the meter to know whether someone is actually parked in the spot.

“I don’t see it coming to Iowa State for a while,” Russell said.

Russell said he thinks the technology in which a phone call can pay the service with a credit card is a technology that will come on strong in the future.

Doug Houghton, program manager for the Department of Public Safety, said Iowa State could potentially advance to the coin-free parking meters.

“On a college campus, I think it would be effective,” Houghton said. “College students are always one step ahead in technology.”

Most students have cell phones, and it would be fairly easy for them to dial a number to pay for parking or to find an open parking spot as they are arriving to campus, he said.

Parking meters on Iowa State’s campus are improved every five years. Houghton said this is the fourth year for the meters, so an upgrade within one year to 18 months could result in the electronic pay-parking system on certain meters.

“Upgrading of machines is a big deal,” he said.

He said it costs anywhere between $60,000 and $70,000 to upgrade the entire system, not including moving to Intellipay. A cost constraint on this wireless technology is a possible transaction fee for every swipe of the credit card, he said. The parking division would also have to pay a monthly fee to the companies providing the system.

“The downside would be that it appears to be very expensive,” Houghton said.