‘Smart’ parking meters give bogus tickets

Convenience often comes with a price — and in Walnut Creek, that price just might be an undeserved $45 parking ticket.

Recently, “smart” parking meters in downtown Walnut Creek went on the fritz, doling out fines to folks who had, in fact, paid to park.

The meters, similar to ones used in San Francisco, receive a wireless signal when a vehicle enters or leaves a parking spot. This also allows drivers to search for open spots using an app, rather than endlessly circling the block.

But it turns out that the sensors sending those signals may be just a little too sensitive, city officials said.

About “99.9 percent of the time, the system performs exactly as intended,” Matt Huffaker, assistant to Walnut Creek’s city manager, told The Chronicle. “However, the city identified isolated areas where the sensor sensitivity was too high, resulting in the sensor detecting passing vehicles, or a car entering an adjacent space.

In other words, if a car pulled up in a neighboring space or a large truck drove by, it could automatically reset the meter, rendering its current occupant illegally parked.

Huffaker said the city has since adjusted the sensitivity of the meters to prevent future glitches.

The city confirmed that the glitch resulted in about 100 unwarranted tickets over a threemonth period — less than 0.01 percent of total meter transactions — but that figure is based only on those who reported their errant tickets to the city. It is unclear how many more false tickets might have been issued, or how long the malfunction persisted before the city took note.

Huffaker said that in cases where a malfunction was confirmed, the ticket would be waived.

In other cities, including San Jose and Santa Monica, there have also been reports of similar “smart” meter malfunctions.

Huffaker said the city is continuing to monitor the meter system closely.