City of Seattle to Provide Pay-By-Phone Parking Service

In cities spanning across the United States, you can always find an 800 toll free number located on top of a parking meter in case you’re out of change or if the machine just isn’t taking your credit card. In the interest of upping the ante of efficiency, a new mobile app is coming out that will allow users to pay for their parking. The project, headed by the Seattle Department of Transportation in partnership with the Seattle Police Department—Parking Enforcement, is set to be implemented around fall 2012.

According to an article released in November 2011 by Government Technology, “Once the pay-by-phone system is up and running, drivers will have the option to download a free app for their smartphones and register their personal information—including their name, address, vehicle license plate number, and credit card number—into the app. Once registered, the driver’s information will be saved for future use.”

The app will also inform the user when the allotted time is running out and provide parking enforcement officers a device to check expired vehicles with web access that can take down the license plate information of the vehicles of those who have already paid, meaning no ticket on the dashboard. And if you’ve got no touch screen to tap your payment upon, then you can use the service through a 800 toll-free phone number service.

This program is part of a series of advancement parking enforcement services that are being put into action across the country. Other cities such as New York City, San Francisco, and Houston are beginning to implement such technologies as well. In fact, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin has even deployed sixty-one solar-powered pay stations allowing drivers to pay via text messages.

The last big advancement, what we now know as the conventional parking pay meter station, replaced over an average of 1,000 single-head meters across the country. With these modern advancements, which is a definite convenience, is sure to leave a few people missing the days of watching those running across the sidewalks, going Dukes of Hazard on the front hood to beat the meter maid on a foot race. On the other hand, certainly no one will miss the hassle of having to make change to make the meter.