Townsville’s current French-manufactured parking meters have reached the end of their serviceable life after 12 years – with Council now set to roll out a solar solution.
“Council is managing the city’s parking meters as they do any other asset when it reaches the end of its useful life,” Townsville City Council Infrastructure Services Committee chairperson, Kurt Rehbein said this week.
“The prudent management of assets is a key focus for delivering value for ratepayers and the approach we use to manage parking meters means replacing these assets at the end of their useful life.
“The fact is our current parking meters are outdated, prone to failure and require parts from overseas companies which are near impossible to obtain.
“The asset replacement cycle gives us the opportunity to investigate innovative options and there have been technological and customer experience advances over the last 12 years.
“This means we can harness the latest industry innovations to make finding and paying for parking in Townsville as easy and efficient as possible, similar to other councils like Cairns.”
Last year, Council issued a call for expressions of interest (EOI) to find suitable replacement meters.
Council received seven responses to its EOI and has engaged Australian-owned and based company Duncan Solutions to provide the new meters. With the replacement meters having an estimated useful life of 10 years, they will be depreciated at $120,000 per annum.
The replacement meters will be solar powered with a built-in solar panel, will have a 17cm colour touch screen LED display with remote update of messages available and will operate on the mobile phone network.
A complementary smart device app will allow people to pay for their parking without needing to go to the meter.
Using a vehicle’s number plate as the identifier means printed tickets will no longer be required to be displayed on vehicles.
“Fees for parking in Townsville have not changed in 11 years, and will not change with the installation of these replacement meters,” said Mr Rehbein.
