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by Yap Heng Kiong
In his latest National Day Rally speech on 20 August 2017, Prime Minister of Singapore Mr. Lee Hsien Loong, mentioned that parking in Singapore will go coupon-free from October onwards with an mobile app.
To read more about this, please click below link
How Coupon-free parking work?
I went ahead to register myself as a trial user at the following website,
I was being selected and informed on the same day of request to become one of the 10,000 trial users of this app. (yay)
I received an email with an instruction to install Testflight on my iphone.
So what is TestFlight? Here's the official answer from Apple
Beta Testing Made Simple TestFlight makes it easy to invite users to test your apps and collect valuable feedback before you release them on the App Store. You can invite up to 10,000 testers using just their email address. Source - https://developer.apple.com/testflight/
To install the correct app, enter the app code provided in the email when prompted.
This is how the Streetsmart Driver app icon look like on an Iphone 6
Double click on the icon to launch the app on your mobile phone.
After determining my location, the following screen appeared.
Enter vehicle number, select car park to proceed
I entered my vehicle number, selected the carpark and the duration of parking, then pressed 'Proceed'. (For first time users, you will also be prompted to enter your credit card number to effect the payment.) The next page is the confirmation details. Once you are sure the information provided is correct, click on 'Park Now' to proceed. This is when you will be charged on a per minute basis.
I have now made payment to park for the next 30 minutes.
During this 30 minutes, I have the option to either terminate the parking charge by clicking on "End Now" or to extend beyond 10 minutes by clicking on "Extend" A reminder will be sent 10 minutes before the expiry of the parking duration so the owner can top up the parking fees via the phone app.
The old system of using paper coupons requires Enforcement officers (Parking Wardens) going around car parks issuing summons for vehicles without valid coupons.
How will verification be carried out on coupon-free parking vehicles then? There isn't much information available on this. From what I read from the FAQ at www.parking.sg, validation of coupon-free parking seem to work in a similar way. Except that upon seeing no paper coupons being displayed on a vehicle's dashboard, hypothetically, the Enforcement officers would then do a check via a terminal (probably an ipad) to check the vehicle's car plate number against a database system containing details of every car which has valid parking paid for using the app. Can We Make It Better?
Is this the best we can do moving towards a smarter city? How can we make it better? Perhaps a more automated way of verification could be considered using CCTV cameras with number recognition.
Instead of a Enforcement Officer patrolling and entering vehicle numbers for verification, one possibility is the use of High Definition (HD) CCTV cameras to capture vehicle numbers and checked against the central database automatically.
The location of the CCTV cameras need to cover the area where the vehicle numbers can be seen. This poses a challenge for car parks designed for parallel parking.
First In The World
Is this kind of parking charges payment via an app the first in the world? I do not know. But certainly this is not the first time I have heard about such a concept in Singapore.
In 2016, a group of polytechnic students came up with the idea of a parking system using an app and QR codes. It works this way, drivers first purchase valid e-coupons online using Paypal or credit cards. Then he or she prints out a paper QR code to be displayed on the vehicle's dashboard. The verification is conducted using this QR code for validity of parking.
Were Other Technologies Being Considered?
Did the authority consider any other platforms or solutions, before deciding on this Streetsmart Driver app for trial? Besides the Streetsmart Driver App, below are three possible solutions they could have considered-
Setting up of wireless access transponders across the island is a big infrastructure investment. M2M communication among vehicles could happen in Singapore when manufacturers start to ship cars with in-built 3G/4G or even LTE sim card for communications. Taking into consideration time to implement and cost factor, the mobile app solution selected by the Singapore authority seems to be a logical choice.
Conclusion
What's my verdict? I find the app extremely easy to use. The system definitely saves vehicle owners time and effort to purchase paper coupons and reduce paper waste.
Once implemented nation-wide, more data could be collected by the authority about parking situations hence useful for optimised car park lots allocation and better urban planning.
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