The days of parking cards are numbered… Next month, Vienna will become the first major Western European city where motorists can pay for parking simply by using their (WAP-enabled) cellphones.
The days of parking cards are numbered… Next month, Vienna will become the first major Western European city where motorists can pay for parking simply by using their (WAP-enabled) cellphones.
The “mparking” system, developed by Siemens, allows drivers to send text messages to pay for parking minutes, making parking cards (also known as cash cards in South Africa) redundant.
They can dial up the Internet and log on to a website with their cellphones (provided their handsets are wireless application protocol – or WAP – enabled) and type in 30, 60 or 90 minutes, depending on the amount of time they want to leave their cars, then settle the bill later along with their phone accounts.
In addition, motorists’ mobile phones can now alert them when their parking time is about to expire. But it remains to be seen whether motorists will be credited with extra parking time if they take up a spot that was vacated by another car before its driver’s pre-paid time had elapsed!
Similar systems have been tested or implemented in Scandinavia and some corners of eastern and central Europe, but Vienna’s 1,5-million inhabitants and 130 000 parking bays make next month’s launch the biggest the system has seen so far.