Mobile phone parking system spreads further

Első Magyar Mobilfizetés Elszámoló, a company specializing in mobile payment, said its SMS pay parking service is now available in Budapest and 20 other towns in Hungary.

The service allows parking fees to be paid via mobile phones without registration. Another advantage is that there's no need for pre-payment, that is, to have a credit account to draw on, and motorists don't have to pay by the hour, only for the time they actually park their cars.

All car owners have to do is send a text message to the phone numbers displayed on the meters with their car plate number and the planned parking time and they'll get a reply text from the payment company.

The service is available for all Pannon and T-Mobile clients, but you have to be a monthly subscriber at Vodafone to use it. It costs Ft 75 more than using a regular meter.

Pannon deputy CEO Drozdy Győző estimates that within a year about half of all parking fees in Hungary will be paid via mobile devices and meters will completely fall into disuse in three years.

Hungarian motorists make some 30 million parking fee payments each year.

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