It’s been well documented that the driver-less taxi firm Waymo racked up 600 parking tickets in San Francisco in 2024, totaling more than $65,000 in fines. Now that Waymo is getting ready to operate in Pittsburgh, PA, it has no excuse to repeat that performance. For that matter, anyone who envisions a future where their autonomous car can moonlight as a revenue-generating taxi while you’re hard at work can’t claim plausible deniability for parking tickets. Honestly officer, I wasn’t driving the car!
But we aren’t sure the solution is much better. Two Pittsburgh-based startups, Meter Feeder and Mapless AI, have merged to make the first machine-to-machine parking transaction system in the US. If you’re thinking this should be a simple problem to fix in 2026, you’re right. According to Technical.ly, Meter Feeder originally built the tool in 2016.
The Perfect Automated Business Model
“Cities have spent decades building analog parking infrastructure for humans,” Jim Gibbs, CEO of Meter Feeder, told Technical.ly. “We are ensuring municipalities don’t lose millions in revenue just because driverless vehicles can’t feed meters.” That sounds like a stirring piece of civic duty, but it’s really the perfect business model – automated cars making automated payments, and Meter Feeder taking a percentage of each one. Of course, you being the vehicle owner would really be footing the bill. Here’s hoping your car doesn’t have a penchant for parking spots with nice views of the city.
Considering how much Pittsburgh relies on parking fees as a source of revenue, and the timing of the two startups making an automated payment system work, it sounds like Waymo is being cornered. “Our fleets need to safely stage between rides without circling the block and adding to urban congestion,” Johnson from Mapless AI said. “Meter Feeder gave our vehicles the digital ability to be good civic citizens.”
Easy Payment
The payment tool works as you would imagine – the automated vehicle pulls up to the parking spot, alerts the Meter Feeder platform that it’s parked, then calculates the payment when ready, and settles the payment with the city. As for Pittsburgh, us individuals obviously don’t have fully autonomous cars yet, but Waymo sure does. Now, either the company or the city needs to convince Waymo to use it. The technology is purely software, and it uses the location and connectivity hardware that autonomous vehicles already need.
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This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
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