June 15, 2005
Florida City Tests m-Parking meters
Drivers lacking coins now may use cell phones to feed parking meters in Coral Gables, reports Reuters.
"The automated system allows drivers who subscribe to simply dial in from their cell phone, punch in the number assigned to their parking spot, and the required costs — plus a 25-cent usage fee — will be billed to their credit card. When leaving, subscribers call back and end the billing cycle.
The Miami suburb began offering the system this month on its 4,573 meters; so far, more than 250 people have subscribed.
Related m-parking elsewhere:
-- UC gets m-parking - The University of California-Santa Barbara with help from IBM, overhauled its parking system, enabling mobile users to pay for their parking meters with their cell phones. (February 2005)
-- Sun-powered parking meters for city - Solar-powered parking meters capable of accepting credit cards and payment via mobile phone are to be installed in central Sydney. (February 2005)
-- M-Parking in Vienna The Austrian capital has just completed its first year of allowing residents to pay for any of its 126,000 short-term parking spaces by mobile phone, under what it calls its M-Parking system (October 2004).
-- Parking Fees to Be Paid by SMS -Sofia municipality (Bulgaria) will introduce a new "Pay and display" parking fee system (October 2004)
-- Austrians purchase car-parking tickets by mobile phones - About 50,000 drivers are now purchasing their car-parking tickets by mobile phone and SMS in Vienna and five other cities in Austria. "M-parking" was introduced a year ago by German IT services provider Siemens Business Services and mobile operator Mobilkom. (October 2004) Austria.
-- mParking - The first scheme in the UK which allows drivers to pay for parking by mobile phone has been launched in Scotland (October 2003).
-- Sydney Council today launched its new mobile phone payment parking system, which not only allows motorists to pay for metered parking using their mobile phone - but also lets them know via SMS that their meter is due to expire. (March 19, 2004)
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