Parking sensors to alert officials of violations

The national parking management company Central Parking System is conducting a high-tech experiment in downtown Atlanta that it hopes will boost revenues without raising rates and maybe help ease traffic congestion.

The new system also will make it easier to detect parking violators and quickly dispatch a booting or towing service.

Loop sensors, similar to those used at intersections to trip traffic lights, were embedded in parking spaces this week at a surface lot across from CNN and Centennial Olympic Park. The sensors and a transmitter will wirelessly alert an operations center that a vehicle is in the space. The motorist then will be required to go to a payment kiosk to obtain a receipt for the dashboard.

If the driver does not pay or allows the time to expire, Central Parking will be notified via the Internet and take enforcement action.

“Nobody will get booted or towed unless we are 100 percent sure there’s a violation there,” said Robert Cizek, Central Parking’s senior vice president for the Southeast.

The system, which is scheduled to begin operating next month, is supposed to speed up parking space turnover and reduce the time motorists spend searching for a place to land.

The experiment involves about 100 parking spaces on extremely valuable land. Central Parking sold the corner property last year for almost $20 million and signed a long-term lease.

Kennesaw-based StreetSmart Technology provided the equipment. StreetSmart and MobileNOW! are the companies behind Decatur’s new street-parking program in which motorists pay using their cellphones.

“Parking space is one of the most undermanaged municipal assets,” Ted Russ, StreetSmart’s chief operating officer, said. “Numerous studies show how parking contributes to extra traffic in town,” worsening pollution and noise.

The new system will help resolve payment disputes, and in the future it might allow drivers to use their cellphones to locate available parking, said Russell Miller, Central Parking’s general manager in Atlanta.

StreetSmart is a start-up company that’s installed street-parking management systems in California, Florida and Israel. The deal with Central Parking is its first parking lot effort.