The PayByPhone system in San Francisco is among the largest near field communication (NFC) projects happening worldwide, and it is allowing urban motorists to pay for their parking by way of their mobile devices.
PayByPhone is one of the top international providers of mobile payments for the parking and urban marketplace. It announced that it has been selected by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) to add NFC enabled stickers to the 30,800 parking spaces around the city. This will provide drivers with the opportunity to use their mobile devices with NFC technology to make their parking payments.
Furthermore, mobile apps and the mobile web will allow individuals with regular smartphones to make these payments. The meters will continue to accept traditional coin-based payments, but it is believed that many people will find mobile payments much more convenient and appealing.
The sticker provided by PayByPhone works with a passive electronic chip that doesn’t require any battery power, and that is capable of holding information such as the number of the parking space, which can be read by a smartphone that is NFC-enabled.
Users need only wave or tap their device over the sticker in order to automatically launch the app for the parking payments. The system recognizes the parking space and the user and then prompts the user to choose the amount of time that is needed. The payment is made and the transaction is complete.
According to the PayByPhone vice president of business, Neil Podmore, “This is one of the largest deployments of NFC technology in the United States” and it helps to demonstrate the useful advantages for convenience and simplicity of the technology.