Nokia is working on a new parking service, and it sounds pretty awesome. This service, which will be licensed to third-party developers via Navteq for use in future apps and HTML5 websites, makes it easy to find and pay for parking.
Nokia Parking is essentially a database of parking lots, spaces, and structures. It contains all sorts of useful information, including the maximum vehicle height for a parking garage and even a real-time look at which spaces are available. Once you’ve found a place to park, the service will allow you to pay directly from your phone or car. Just set it up and start the timer. When you’re ready to leave, it will process the transaction and email you a receipt.
This sounds like a very useful – not to mention pretty cool – service. But, for it to be useful, Nokia and its licensees will need to forge a number of partnerships. As a result, while Nokia Parking is launching in Europe this November, it’ll initially only be available in a “limited number of cities.” Unfortunately, “Nokia will not be offering this service directly” either, so don’t expect to find it as an exclusive Windows Phone app – at least, not yet.
[Engadget]
We will have to wait and see if the parking structures are willing to install sensors on every parking spot.
I have seen this happen in some upscale malls in Los Angeles, CA. Where every parking spot has a light on top that changes from purple, to red, to green. Purple means there is no parking spot there, or used to indicate turns, etc. Then the red obviously for a taken spot, and green for available spots.
It is very nice cause instead of going slower looking for a spot, you can just follow the lights which are very accurate.
I am seeing more and more shopping centres install sensors in parking places to help get people into a park quicker (and this is certainly not limited to upscale shopping centres). I can defiantly see this sort of payment option exploding.
However this idea, I do not like at all.
I hate parking already in these sorts of scenarios, and no amount of technology is going to make up for the fact that no-one knows how to park a car (no matter how big or small) properly, and restrain their trolleys from scratching my car.