In February, Berlin will become the first German city to start using ticket-free 'mobile-phone parking'. Cool idea, complicated process.
This is how it works: drivers register their mobile-phone number, their car registration number and their bank details on the internet under http://www.handy-parken.de/. They then receive an individual permit by post, which they stick on the inside of the windscreen. And that’s all there is to it. They then simply ring an 0800 free-phone number with the mobile phone that they’ve registered, and receive prompt confirmation by call-back. When they’ve finished parking, they repeat the process with a second 0800 free-phone number. Alternatively, they can send an SMS to the 0800 number – simply using “S” for start and “E” for end. They will then receive a confirmation SMS. As a result, drivers no longer have to depend on parking machines and car-parking tickets, parking times can be calculated accurately to within three minutes, and there’s no need to worry about extending the parking time. At the same time, there’s no risk of getting a “parking ticket” because you’ve exceeded the time that you’ve paid for. You simply pay at the end of the month by direct debit. And it goes without saying that drivers will still be able to use the familiar car-parking tickets and parking meters as well as the new mobile-phone solution.
Checks are carried out as follows. The inspector stands in front of the parked vehicle, enters the permit details with the encoded vehicle registration number by camera mobile phone (Siemens SX1), transmits the encoded data via GPRS to the Siemens Business Services data center and, a few seconds later, receives a message back on his or her mobile phone confirming whether the driver of the vehicle has registered.
