The Parking Meter Page - History (original) (raw)
Parking Meter
History
This web site
is dedicated to
the memory of
Ronald B. Luttrell Sr.
1930 - 1992
Ronald B. Luttrell, II
1956 - 2000
History of Parking Meters
First of all, a disclaimer: I don't profess to know every detail of parking meter history, but I have a better than average knowledge, and I'd like to share some milestones in the development of parking meters. A lot of what I know, I gleaned from conversations with my father, the late Ronald B. Luttrell Sr, who loved to talk about his work in the industry. I've intentionally avoided exact dates where I'm not sure of them, and I've tried not to editorialize too much, or to show any undue favoritism toward a particular manufacturer. The purpose of The Parking Meter Page is not to advertise for or promote specific brands of parking meters, but rather to inform the reader about the industry as a whole. To that end, I present this short history.
Although it is sometimes disputed, Carl C. Magee, of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is generally credited with originating the parking meter. He filed for a patent for a "coin controlled parking meter" May 13, 1935. The patent, #2,118,318, was issued May 24, 1938.
The world's first installed parking meter was in Oklahoma City, on July 16, 1935. Mr. Magee had been appointed to the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce traffic committee, and was assigned the task of solving the parking problems in downtown Oklahoma City. Apparently, folks who worked in the area were parking on downtown streets, staying all day, and leaving few spaces for shoppers and others who visited the central business district.
Magee's solution was to install parking meters, charge for the use of the parking spaces, and turn over those spaces that would otherwise have been filled by all day parkers. In addition, the parking meters would generate revenue for a growing city. It must have worked, as the idea of metered parking eventually caught on worldwide. From that early beginning, the use of parking meters by municipalities, colleges and universities, and private parking facilities has increased to the point that today, in the United States alone, there are an estimated five million parking meters in use.
Based on this number, if every parking meter collected only 25 cents per day, the gross revenues generated by parking meters in the U.S. for one day would be a staggering 1.25 million dollars ($1,250,000).
Although Magee's mission was to solve parking problems, it is evident from his patent application that generating revenue was an important issue from the beginning. In the application, he stated that his invention related to "meters for measuring the time of occupancy or use of parking or other space, for the use of which it is desirous an incidental charge be made upon a time basis." Some may argue whether or not 1.25 million dollars a day are "incidental." Of course, I have no idea how much money parking meters actually collect in a day's time, so that number may be meaningless; it could be lower, or it could be much higher. Suffice it to say that there is a lot of money being stuffed into parking meters every day. Mr. Magee probably had no inkling of the scale to which his invention would eventually be applied.
The early parking meters were totally mechanical (as are many even today). The meters were powered by a clock-type mainspring, which required periodic winding. There were two general approaches to accomplishing this: some meters were automatic, and some were manual.
With an automatic meter, the patron merely inserts the required coin and the clockworks move the "time remaining" indicator to the appropriate location, and start the timing mechanism. While this is convenient for the patron, it requires parking meter maintenance personnel to periodically walk the streets winding parking meters.
In a manual meter, winding is accomplished by the patron turning a handle after a coin is inserted. Since the meter only needs to run long enough for the current patron's time to expire (a few hours, at most), the mainspring can be made smaller and runs down much faster. In addition, the employees' hours required to wind parking meters can be eliminated which, in turn, reduces overhead costs and increases the net revenues to the meter owner. Thank you very much, John Q. Public, for winding our meters for us.
The first parking meters were manufactured by the Magee-Hale Park-O-Meter company. But they didn't get to keep the market all to themselves forever; parking meters were manufactured by others as well. Some of those manufacturers were Dual, Mark-Time, and Duncan-Miller. Of today's parking meter manufacturers, the ones with the longest bloodlines are probably POM, Inc., descendants of Magee's company, and Duncan Industries, of Duncan-Miller ancestry.
As parking meters became more and more common, it was a certainty that the criminal element would eventually discover that each one of those meters could contain a somewhat respectable amount of money, albeit all in small change. It was relatively easy to break into a parking meter and help oneself to its contents. Parking meter burglaries were fairly regular occurrences almost everywhere meters were installed. This lead to security improvements by the manufacturers, and by the mid 1960's most meters were available with armored coin boxes.
Although many cities were able to reduce their personnel costs by using manual parking meters, the money still had to be collected from the meters on a regular basis, and this too required manpower. So did installing posts upon which to mount the meters. Occasionally those posts got hit by a car, and had to be straightened or replaced. And for every metered parking space, there were one post and one meter.
Once again the manufacturers came up with a way to reduce their customers' costs, and thus further improve their revenues. Enter the dual head parking meter. Except for some end spaces on a block, the number of posts and meters could be cut in half. This served to reduce labor costs in several ways. First, the number of posts and parking meters that had to be installed was reduced. Second, the number of targets for wayward vehicles was reduced, and thus the number of potential "knock downs." And third, each dual head meter served two spaces but had only one coin box from which to collect, which reduced the time required to collect the money. A bonus was that cutting the number of parking meters and posts in half greatly reduced the amount of sidewalk clutter, which made everyone happy.
Although it may not be readily apparent to most end users, the lowly parking meter has seen significant improvement in the last sixty years or so. For more information about the latest in parking meter technology, see my Current State of the Artpage.
As I continue my research, I'll add to and hopefully improve this section of The Parking Meter Page. So please visit often.
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