Foursprung: Wireless RFID Helps Feed Parking Meters

You know that your time on the parking meter is expiring but you are too far away to feed it? Not a problem any more when RFID technology will be added added to its popular pay-by-cellular phone parking application by a Canadian company in February, making a wave of a credit or ATM card as powerful as a fistful of quarters.

Registered users of the pay-by-cellular phone service dial a toll-free telephone number to initiate an account, and provide their parking stall numbers to pay by phone with an ATM card, MasterCard, or Visa. As most of these cards are equipped with RFID technology anyway Digital Payment Technologies is adding the ability to wave cards before an RFID reader rather than to swipe its magnetic strip.

This enables the system to send an automated reminder to the user minutes before parking expires. Those requiring additional time need only call the toll-free number to purchase more.

Payment by cell phones is established already in Calfornian cities from San Diego to San Francisco and some of them are very interested in the enhancement by the RFID technology. West Hollywood is considering the RFID application option for the rollout, where mass-transit cards used to pay for city metro rails and buses would allow travelers to pay for parking with a wave instead of a card swipe. Law enforcement can monitor parking spaces and issue citations through a central database or via handheld devices.

Foursprung, parking, RFID

Source: Mobile Pipeline

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