Mobiles supplant Westminster's parking meters

Parking meters to be replaced within 12 months

Westminster to replace parking meters

Westminster Council is planning to replace all its parking meters within 12 months following a six-month trial of mobile phone ticketing technology.

Westminster introduced cashless parking in the West End and Harrow Road last year to reduce the theft of £50,000 a week from parking meters, as well as to make life easier for motorists (Computing, 2 October).

Drivers set up an account and pay by text, registering their registration details and parking bay number, which is then transmitted to attendants’ handheld computers in real time.

But some motorists have had difficulty in initially registering for the scheme using the interactive voice response system, which automatically manages calls and links to a central database.

And GPRS technology, used to connect the handheld devices with the database, has suffered from reliability problems that delays updating motorists’ details.

‘There were some glitches, but this is pioneering technology,’ Westminster councillor Danny Chalkley told Computing.

The council plans to install speech recognition technology to overcome problems with registration, and could start replacing meters as soon as October, says Westminster director of parking Alistair Gilchrist.

‘There will still be pay and display machines that accept cash but ultimately we would like to make them cashless as well, with parking paid for by mobile phone or chip-and-PIN,’ he said.

There is support for mobile phone parking provided it is convenient and the technology works, says Tim Shallcross, spokesman at independent road safety organisation the IAM Motoring Trust. ‘Westminster must ensure there are no mistakes when registering with the service and information can be transmitted using GPRS,’ he said.