After flying 24 hours home from Asia, I realized I lost my parking ticket for the Dulles economy lots. To make it worse, I had written my parking location on the ticket and was not sure of the location of my car.

I got on the gold lot bus and told the driver of my problems. I got off the bus at a location I thought might be near my car. It was not and I started wandering around, pulling my heavy bag. I saw an airport parking lot car cruise by. He said the bus driver had told him about me. I gave him my license plate number and he called it in and was told the exact row my car was parked in. Sure enough, there it was, and in the back section of green, not gold, lot. It turns out that they keep track of where all the cars are as well as when you enter the lot by your license plate number.

So when I went to the cashier to pay without a ticket, they asked me the date I came in and sure enough, with my license plate number , they found the exact time on their system. After a long trip, I was very happy with their help.

The employee who helped me said that I could have used the phone from any bus shelter to call for help. This is good informatin to know.

Don't you find this a little scarey?

I had just finished a book on my flight called The Traveler which was science fiction but dealt with a society where they kept tabs on everyone to control them. The parallel was not lost on me.

As far back as I can recall, the DC area lots have marked the cars. back in the 70's or 80's when I lost my ticket, the cashier went to the back of my car and pulled a little rolled up ticket with the date of my first overnight in the lot.

on my last couple of lost tickets(get old, already) they punch up the lisence number on the device in the booth, and get the time of arrival.

I have a feeling this happens with a significient percentage of the patrons.

at BWI private lot last week, I was stuck behind someone for about 15 minutes while he turned the car upsidedown. Seems he could not find his voucher for 2 weeks of prepaid parking. no discount for prepaid. must have voucher. sounds like a bad option to me.

I've seen them walk the rows a few times writing down the license plate # of each and every car. It helps for those that can't find their cars.

I greatly dislike the picture taking that goes on entering/exiting the lots from the automated booths as those lights seems to be pointed more at the driver than the where the plate might be. The cashiers always rotated the camera as needed for the license plate picture based on bumper height & car type - that was fine as it clearly hit the plate, I'm not sure of what is being snapped these days.

BTW - SS did you have to prove somehow it was "your" car since you didn't have the slip or did they just look it up and let you drive away?

I had just finished a book on my flight called The Traveler which was science fiction but dealt with a society where they kept tabs on everyone to control them. The parallel was not lost on me.

Totally OT - but I just read that book as well - excellent book! I think it increased my paranoia about big gov't & the TSA though!

I've seen them walk the rows a few times writing down the license plate # of each and every car. It helps for those that can't find their cars.

I greatly dislike the picture taking that goes on entering/exiting the lots from the automated booths as those lights seems to be pointed more at the driver than the where the plate might be. The cashiers always rotated the camera as needed for the license plate picture based on bumper height & car type - that was fine as it clearly hit the plate, I'm not sure of what is being snapped these days.

BTW - SS did you have to prove somehow it was "your" car since you didn't have the slip or did they just look it up and let you drive away?

When the attendant drove me to my car, he watched me open it with my keys so no problem there. On the missing ticket, they asked for drivers license and wrote down the info.