Smart Phones Feed Smart Parking Meters
Voicebit of Finland has announced an interesting application that
does have a real value in the midst of hundreds of other
applications that are on the borderline of adoption.
Conversion to Euro currency means retooling parking meters
throughout Europe. But "virtual metering" - fruit of smart phones, IVR, and the web - may prove to be a viable
(and profitable) alternative.
The service is still in pilotphase - in Oulu, the high-tech capital of
Northern Finland, where GSM Nokia cell phones are as ubiquitous as
can be anywhere in the world. No
paying customers, yet.
Called NextPark, the service has been installed by VoiceBit, a
telecom application developer. VoiceBit is 90% owned by the Oulu
Telephone Company, which hosts the system. Here's how it works. My
parking "meter" is about to run out. My cell phone beeps
with a message to remind me. Even better: It lets me
"insert" some more "change" from wherever I am
at the moment. No need to watch the clock. No need to run out in the
rain to shove change in the meter.
To use NextPark, users register on the web or at a service
center, and get a sticker for their vehicle. Thereafter, whenever
they park in Oulu's city center, they make a GSM phone call to a
voice server. The IVR, powered by Aculab Prosody cards, prompts for
all entries and confirms all choices in concatenated speech. One E1
(30 ports) serves the system for now.
The caller is identified by their mobile phone number or PIN.
They input the zone in which they're parking (Oulu's city center is
divided into three concentric zones around the urban core) estimate
the length of time they'll need to park, and authorize payment. In
the current test, payment is debited from a prepaid account charged
and recharged via NextPark's website - but in principle, other modes
of payment are possible (direct invoice, credit-card billing,
charges appear on phone bill, etc.).
Fifteen minutes before time expires, the server sends an SMS
message or places a voice call to the customer's cell phone. The
customer can choose to extend the parking time if necessary,
authorizing additional payment. SMS can be used as an instant back
channel to complete this transaction. If your phone is voice-only,
you call the IVR again to extend time.
To check if a participant's car has overstayed the paid time, an
Oulu "traffic warden" calls the system on her WAP phone,
enters her approximate location, and sees a list of cars parked in
that area: license-plate number, owner's name, and any time left on
the "meter." (VoiceBit will soon implement a feature that
lets the traffic warden search by individual plate numbers.) If the
clock has run out on a participant, the warden writes out a ticket
the old-fashioned way. The system requires no physical meters at
all, eliminating the need to service meters and collect change.
Because meter-less parking can be "freeform," the system
may also allow more cars to effectively and conveniently park in a
given area, thus increasing municipal revenue.
On a website that looks familiar to E-ZPass-packing Americans,
Finns can browse to check up on their parking history for expense
reporting (and other, more interesting) purposes. Unlike E-ZPass,
however, VoiceBit's parking system calls for no onsite scanning
equipment, no special end-user devices, and throws no one out of
work (except for those who service parking meters).
Juho Toivonen, VoiceBit's marketing director, says NextPark's
best short-term potential is in Europe, where full cutover to the
Euro currency next year will call for fixes to a continent full of
meters and vending machines. Longer-term, he hopes to see
municipalities take this on as an alternative to replacing outdated
meters, and as an added convenience to its citizens. VoiceBit may
also sell its platform to wireless carriers, who may operate the
system as a paid service to hi-tech municipalities.
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