ParkNOW! Pushes the Envelope in Our Digital World

Today's cell phones are so chock full of amenities that you may not even get to around to using them all. Take my cell phone for instance; it operates as an MP3 player, it has both text and picture messaging capabilities; I can play Pac-Man and it even allows me to access the World Wide Web. It has a 5 megapixel camera and takes great videos as well. The lists of cell phone features are seemingly endless; many phones even provide integrated GPS systems.

Our lives are so high tech that we can't seem to live without our little electronic assistants. You can barely take a step without seeing someone clicking away on their PDA, their laptop, cell phone and don't get me started one the highly additive "Crackberry"... Uh, I mean Blackberry. President-elect Barak Obama is actually fighting with the federal government to retain the use of his Blackberry once he takes office in January 2009. The Command-in-Chief isn't allowed to have this device due to very strict e-mail laws of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. The tech-savvy Obama may be fighting a losing battle.

Now that you are sufficiently addicted to your vice... uh, I mean device, there is yet another awesome advantage to having your cell phone always at the ready; pay-by-cell phone parking!

Downtown Decatur is playing host to the country's only pay-by-cell phone parking test site. ParkNOW! is a service offered by New York based MobileNOW! While Decatur is the only test site, MobileNOW! President Krista Tassa is hoping that their service will also be available in several Georgia cities in the coming year or two.

Ready, Set, Park In addition to being an innovative idea, the service is simple to use and free for first timers. After you select your parking space, call the phone number listed on the parking meter. You enter the number of the parking space that you have selected and you will be given a verbal confirmation of your transaction. Shortly afterwards you will receive a text message confirming that you have secured paking. After your free trial you will need to register at the website for future cell phone parking. It doesn't matter who your cell phone service provider is; as long as you have a phone number to complete the registration process. It's as simple as logging on to www.goparknow.com to establish an individual account.

There are several possibilities. In Decatur the cell phone puts time directly on the meter so that this is visible to everyone including the meter-maid. Parking enforcement is conducted just as with other non-cell parkers. However, as this is a new technology for Decatur the meter-maids carry a wireless handheld device to utilize in the two cell parking lots which connects to the ParkNOW! server and verifies that the person did or did not park and pay by cell phone prior to issuing a citation.

No Ticket Guarantee The high-tech parking innovators will even pay your parking ticket if you are ever ticketed in error while using their service. Tassa stated that, "there have been one or two instances when there was a glitch with the communications hardware associated with a specific meter, but since our system has real-time monitoring we were able to detect the problem and alert the meter staff. This was actually not even a problem with the cell parking component of the system."

This service can be especially useful on college campuses because not many students are without cell phone service. This younger crowd is also most likely to be open-minded to using phones for more than just making phone calls. Tassa says, "we are beginning to market to universities. We are also looking at introducing a text to park front-end to supplement our current IVR (voice prompts) system which might have more appeal on campuses." Many campuses allow students flexibility in using their student accounts; traditionally students were restricted to using their account at the campus dining hall. In the future we may even see students using these funds to cover such amenities as pay by cell phone parking.

Vandals Foxnews.com reported 500 of downtown Atlanta's parking meters were sawed from their posts in 2007. Thieves racked up a quarter of a million dollar tab as the city pays $500 to replace each meter. Tassa believes that the ParkNOW! service can actually serve as a deterrent to these types of costly thefts. There is no additional cost involved as the cell phone parking service can operate with existing meters giving motorists another payment option, integrated with the meters (as in Decatur), or completely independent of meters. The latter would be where the operator removes meters once cell parking is established or in cases where paid parking is expanded into areas which previously did not have any meters. No meters, no vandalism. But even with meters in place the fact there would be fewer coins to take could also be a deterrent.

Cell phones are a part of everyday life, whether you like it or not. Cell phone technology has progressed in such a way that there isn't much that you can't do with a cell phone. Considering how far cell phone technology has come, the possibilities are endless. With everything from GPS technology to camera and video capabilities already available, it wouldn't be hard to fathom a cell phone doing things like starting a car in cold weather, or turning the lights on at home before you get there.