If there’s one frustration able to drive the most peaceful driver into instant rage, it’s to find a parking meter, and then discover it takes the very coins that are not in his pocket. It is not a new experience for most of us.
Those who appear at the very wrong moment, and who don’t care, are traffic wardens. They answer your fury by insisting a driver has to carry every coin ever minted. And suggestions to the contrary to them very often are taken as double-Dutch.
But it’s the Dutch who have what appears to be an almost perfect answer. As long as you have a mobile phone, that is.
When parking in Groningen, Haarlem and Rotterdam, the Europeans simply phone up a special number, and the parking clock begins ticking. When they drive off, another phone call finishes the transaction.
It might seem that an extraordinary trust is placed on these drivers. But in fact their mobile phones are equipped with what’s called a transponder card. It is the product of Nedap and it won them an award in 2001 for their Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology.
Well-deserved too, harassed drivers in Britain would say. The cities offered what they call ‘mobile parking’ which drivers can registered with via the internet. Their details are kept on a central database.
All customers registered for Mobile Parking and people holding a parking license for the city will automatically receive a Nedap transponder card, linked to customer details in the central database.
To start the parking transaction, the driver parks the car, dials a special number and types in the area code where his car is parked. Subsequently the driver places the transponder card behind the cars windshield to avoid an otherwise inevitable parking ticket.
The transaction is independently sent to the central database. When the customer returns to the car, he calls the number to end the transaction. Actual time parked is calculated and the parking cost is charged only once a month.
