Nonlinear Parking Pricing Now!
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Parking meters rarely allow you to buy as much time as you like. Instead, they impose a maximum time quantity of 1 hour, 2 hours, or 4 hours. Why bother? The standard story is that nearby merchants don’t really want people who come to park. They want people who come to shop. Quantity restrictions keep out commuters – and leaves space for folks who want to swing by and spend some money.
As long as you charge parkers with traditional coin-operated meters, there’s no easy way to appease local merchants. With parking apps, however, there’s clearly a better way to make life more convenient. Instead of setting strict quantity limits, why not just set non-linear prices? Such as:
1 hour $0.00
2 hours $1.00
3 hours $3.00
4 hours $6.00
Each extra hour +$3.00
Notice: This still favors people who park briefly, shop, and leave – just as local merchants prefer. But it creates a safety valve for commuters, people who want to see a movie and shop, people who get held up in a meeting, and so on. In the immortal words of The Six Million Dollar Man, “We have the technology.” So why not?
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