
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 18, 1995                   TAG: 9503210054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA                                LENGTH: Short

INVENTOR'S METER MADE TO RAISE CASH

Vincent Yost wants to kill one of life's little joys - finding a parking spot with time left on the meter.

The suburban Philadelphia entrepreneur is testing meters that erase leftover time when a car pulls out of a spot. The meters use infrared sensors and lithium-powered computer chips to ``see'' parking spaces.

``There's nothing free about it,'' Yost says proudly. The goal is for towns to boost parking revenue without raising rates.

Yost says merchants will learn to love his meters because they prevent meter feeding, increasing turnover. ``If the time limit is up and the car hasn't moved, the meter will take the money, but it won't add any more time,'' he says.

And in another diabolical twist, a meter reader can tap the meter's memory with a hand-held device and obtain a record of how long it has been since an expired meter was last fed.

``No more running up and saying, `It just ran out,''' Yost says.

by CNB