Since parking meters were invented 90 years ago, drivers have been on a wild goose chase to find the best parking spot for the lowest price.

Drivers are in danger of getting whiplash scanning left-to-right between on-street meters and off-street lots while navigating loading zones, clearways and permit-only zones.

Deciphering the riddles on parking signs is a battle in itself - decipher it wrong and you can get slapped with a hefty fine. In fact, 10 per cent of request for parking infringement reviews in Melbourne relate to confusing or complex signage.

So how did we end up here? Why don't we just have free parking spaces that aren't regulated? And who invented parking meters anyway?

We have to take a bit of a drive down memory lane to answer those questions.

Parking was like a lawless Wild West before meters

Before we get to the state of play in Australia, we have to look at the United States, where the parking meter was born.

The automobile boom in the 1920s meant more people were travelling by car to their jobs in metropolitan areas to go to work, and this led to overcrowded streets and traffic congestion that hurt business turnover.

In Oklahoma City, where the number of cars grew from 3,000 in 1913 to half a million in 1930, customers had nowhere to park because the people who worked in the shops had taken all the parking spots.

The city's chamber of commerce, led by newspaper editor Carl Magee, set out to find a solution, and what they came up with was the parking meter - or Park-O-Meter as it was named by the Dual Parking Meter Company that built it.

Paid kerbside parking then began on July 16, 1935 when Oklahoma City installed the world's first 175 Park-O-Meters, with the fee starting at five American cents an hour. 

The public was initially bemused by the new kerbside devices, with one local newspaper reporting that children thought they were gumball machines, and a local rancher used one as a hitching post for his horse.

Dr Donald Shoup, Distinguished Research Professor in Urban Planning at UCLA and author of The High Cost of Free Parking, said the Great Depression motivated Oklahoma City to charge a fee. 

"It was the desire for the money that made these meters popular and they spread very quickly," he said.

But Oklahoma City had started a trend that would quickly spread across the US, with 140,000 Park-O-Meters in use by the early 1940s, despite some objection.

In 1948 North Dakota banned parking meters on public streets and causeways - a ban which is still enforced today.

Parking meters reach Australia

Word of the parking meter experiment reached Australia, which was dealing with its own issues caused by the sudden growth in vehicle ownership.

There were plans in Melbourne in the early 1950s to install kerbside parking meters, but they were not welcomed by motoring groups, with the general manager of the RACQ describing them as "mechanical kerbside bandits."

But there were some who welcomed their arrival as a way of reducing parking offences, like Sydney’s city engineer who said they would “force parking hogs off the street.”

In 1951, Melbourne’s Lord Mayor O.J. Nilsen wrote an opinion piece in The Age in which he opposed their installation.

“I do not believe in parking meters," he wrote.

"They would be an attraction to vandals and the presence of officers would still be necessary." 

However, Victorian Premier John Cain was quoted in 1953 as saying there “appeared to be no objection” to them.

In 1954 it was confirmed Melbourne had ordered 400 meters with the fee set to start at one shilling (about 10 cents) an hour.

The RACV's general manager predicted motorists would boycott the meters at such a high price, but a newspaper poll in The Sun reported 60 per cent of people backed the idea of installing parking meters at shopping centres.

While this debate was going on in Melbourne, Hobart jumped the queue and became the first Australian city to implement parking meters on April 1, 1955 — just 25 days before Melbourne. 

Adelaide joined the party that same year and by the late 1950s most major Australian cities had followed suit.

Parking meters in the digital age

Kerbside machines have evolved since the first Park-O-Meter. Now, pay-as-you-go smartphone apps dominate the streets. 

Parking fees have risen considerably over the years and Australia's are among the highest in the world, but is that due to inflation, revenue raising or for some other reason?

Peak hour rates in Australia for on-street parking range from $3 an hour in Darwin and Canberra, to $7 in Melbourne and $8 in Sydney. 

According to Parkopedia's 2022 Parking Index, Australia is the most expensive country for two-hour and daily off-street parking.

Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne were all in the top 10 most expensive cities.

On-street parking is also expensive, but not as extreme. Australia is the tenth most expensive for two-hour parking and 23rd for the daily rate.

Sydney, Melbourne, and Newcastle were all in the top 40 for most expensive two-hour on-street cities.

The annual budgets of Australian capital cities reveal that on-street parking is a multi-million dollar revenue stream. 

Except for Canberra, all metropolitan councils were budgeting for an increase in on-street parking fees in the current financial year. 

But cities calculate their revenues differently, with some jurisdictions combing off-street and on-street parking, making it difficult to get a full picture.

Should we lower the cost of parking?

Cities and councils charge for parking for the same reason Oklahoma installed parking meters in the first place — to stop people leaving their cars in the one spot all day.

They want a steady turnover of traffic so that people are willing to come into CBDs and spend money. It also helps that councils make considerable revenue from it themselves.

But are parking fees too high? Should CBD parking be free? There are differing opinions on that.

Dr Shoup argues that setting the price for parking should not be left to local government.

"The city councils are the last people to say what the right price should be," he said

"The city councillors should say, 'what do I want the occupancy rate to be?'"

Author and urban planning consultant, David Mepham, said while parking was expensive, the revenue it generated funded public infrastructure.

"Even if people think they're paying too much for [parking], it's often subsidised," Dr Mepham said.

Dr Mepham said more transparency about parking revenue and how it's used could alleviate the outrage felt by people when they have to stump up for a parking space.

"It's very exceptional for councils to explain what they are spending on parking subsidies and the justification for that. It's very unusual, there's very little transparency."

Rebecca Clements, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sydney, said even though free parking sounded like a great idea, it would have a negative effect on the amenity of cities.

She argued the so-called demand responsive parking price system as seen in San Francisco would be a better way of determining the best fee for a parking spot.

Under that system, which was devised by Dr Shoup, under-utilised parking spaces become cheaper while busy areas become more expensive.

Dr Shoup warned that such a system was not easy to implement.

"It's simple to explain, it's not easy to do," he said. 

"But the right price for kerb parking is the lowest price the city can charge and still leave one or two open spaces on every block."

Parking will never be free again, but experts agree that Australia doesn't need more parking spaces — we need more transparency and better parking strategies. 

Simply put, we know we're not putting money into the meter to buy a gumball, but we need to know what we're actually paying for.