A revolutionary technology — the first of its kind in Canada — unveiled at Carleton University yesterday will put an end to shivering in front of pay and display ticket machines in the winter and sprinting across campus to feed the meters before the time runs out.
Parking tickets are going the way of the dinosaur at Carleton, where a technology that uses SMS text messaging to pay for parking made its Canadian debut yesterday.
The technology, which will be piloted in parking lot 2 starting July 5, will be evaluated at the end of August and may be extended to other parking lots on campus.
Carleton computer science professor Dwight Deugo, who developed this alternative to pay and display parking over the last year, said users first register at iParked.ca, where they will submit their cellphone numbers and payment and vehicle information. A text message sent to PARKED (727355) will buy time for the registered vehicle.
The user will get a reminder 10 minutes before the parking expires so that they can extend their time if necessary.
“Imagine never getting a parking ticket again,” said Deugo. “There are practical examples of this over in Europe. It’s just so convenient.”
