Cranford considers replacing downtown pay stations as current system nears end-of-life

Cranford officials told the Township Committee that the town’s downtown parking pay stations are nearing the end of their service life and that parts and vendor support are increasingly scarce.

The police department and parking enforcement staff described multiple recent outages and a pay station that required costly repairs; a vendor demonstration of newer systems prompted officials to recommend replacing the whole system rather than staggered piecemeal upgrades. A police representative explained that modern pay stations provide centralized remote management, contactless payments, and better uptime — and that maintaining two different systems in parallel would be operationally costly.

Staff presented a capital estimate in the municipal budget of roughly $400,000 for a full replacement of the station network and associated back-end integration with resident and commuter permit systems. Committee members asked about options: staged replacement versus a full swap. Staff advised a full system replacement would be more reliable and less costly to operate in the medium term; staging would leave the older system vulnerable to continued outages and high repair costs.

The committee directed staff to include a parking pay station replacement in the capital plan for further review. Staff said the town will test a vendor’s proof-of-concept device in downtown locations to gather merchant and resident feedback before moving to procure a full system.