Meter Maid Monitor Helps You Avoid Parking Tickets

Meter maids, or perhaps “meter men” in some cases, seem to be a necessary evil in crowded cities. Sure, you’d love to be able to park your car in a great spot forever, but eventually someone will need it. If you’re forced to park in a space with a two-hour time limit, you have to assume that a parking enforcement officer will see it just as you leave or risk a fine.

In order to stretch this time out as long as possible, John Naulty decided to take matters into his own hands and set up a Raspberry Pi to monitor the type of vehicles passing his. If it sees something that looks like an Interceptor, it sends Naulty a text message to let him know that he is officially “on the clock.”

I don’t like cars. I like oppressive regimes even less. Avoidance, awareness, and prevention using Tensorflow, PiCamera, and meter maids.

It’s a clever application, and as he notes in the project’s GitHub page, “The developers are in no_way accountable for parking tickets because of rebellious, citation-breaking citizens.”

You can check out Naulty’s presentation from TechCrunch Disrupt SF below!

[h/t Raspberry Pi]