DUBLIN, Ireland-Dublin has become the first city in the world to allow motorists to pay for parking via parking meters through their mobile phones. Systems introduced in other cities have involved scanning the vehicle details.
The service, developed by indigenous mobile solutions firm Itsmobile, has been launched initially in Dublin city center. Motorists call a prescribed number and enter the Pay & Display parking machine’s identification number. An instruction is then sent to the parking machine’s subscriber identity module (SIM) card, activating it with a personalized greeting.
The machine prints out the parking ticket, which is displayed in the usual manner as proof of payment for on-street parking. The parking charge appears on a customer’s next credit card or mobile-phone bill.
Dublin City Council and Itsmobile tested the new technology intensively for the past year and have established commercial agreements with Vodafone and O2 in Ireland to allow their subscribers to use the service.
