Pay-and-display parking ticket machines are an example of an intensely
technological piece of infrastructure. This project explores how we can
use these ubiquitous and expensive boxes to make cities more responsive to
the needs of those who live in them, and proposes a service through which
ticket machines become a communication channel between citizens and their
local authorities. By taking functions that may otherwise be found on
websites or interacted with through mobile devices, and physically
embedding them directly in the urban fabric, City Tickets democratises
access and input to municipal services and brings that dialogue to where
it is most relevant and powerful: here and now.
City Tickets makes the bureaucratic and opaque workings of governance more
transparent and accountable, while redefining the balance of power
supporting participatory urban planning and management processes. Updating
current machines to also issue city tickets in addition to existing
parking tickets allows this existing infrastructure, without the inclusion
of any costly additional technology, to be reconsidered as a way to make
neighbourhoods more liveable and cities more responsive to the needs and
desires of their inhabitants.(Emphasis mine.)
Hyperlocal maps, civic engagement, use of existing technological infrastructure. Intensely clever.
