A new system designed by a Carleton computer sciences professor will allow drivers to pay for parking in university lots via text messaging, the first Canadian program of its kind.
Come July, drivers can use the system by registering at iParked.ca and submitting their cell phone number, credit card information and their license plate number. Once registered, they can pay for parking by texting CAR, for Carleton, along with the lot number they want to park in and the amount of time they wish to park.
Inventor Dwight Deugo said he got the idea for the new system after complaining about paying for parking on a rainy day to a business partner, who — while on vacation in Europe — had been able to pay for parking through text-messaging. The idea may have been inspired by existing similar European models, but Deugo said that “beyond that, there wasn’t much influence.”
"Our main goal or objective was to try to keep it as simple as possible because we know that as far as texting goes, you don’t want to spend a lot of time texting,” he said. “So the actual text message that you have to send, we’ve got it down to about as short as we think we can make it.”
A 50 cent service fee will apply to every message sent to the system in order to pay for the cost of the text messaging, credit card processing, and the harmonized sales tax (HST). Deugo said while this may be a deterrent to some, the parking machines currently in use won’t be going away any time soon.
All information received by iParked.ca is completely safe, Deugo said, and the system is bug-free.
“We encrypt the credit card information that is in our database,” he said. “So if anybody ever could hack their way in, and they were able to get a hold of the client information, they wouldn’t see your credit card number; [and] they wouldn’t see your expiry date, so it would be essentially useless to them.”
Registration begins as early as June 28, and the system will be tested in Parking Lot 2 beginning July 5, according to a mass email sent to students, faculty and staff by Carleton operations manager, Brian Billings. While Deugo can’t say for sure how successful the project will be, he said early buzz looks optimistic.“The general consensus now is that 'It’s a really cool, neat idea,' and 'Why isn’t it already here?'” he said. “The fact that it’s used substantially over in Europe would suggest that the likelihood of it continuing here is pretty good.”