The Toronto Parking Authority has introduced its Green P parking app. It is a staged arrival and may be used at only a limited number of parking lots for the time being. The program permits payment for parking at City lots with your cell phone. An important feature of pay-by-phone is that the user is alerted to the approaching end of his paid time and may top-up time from his phone with no penalty. A similar and in many ways more important app is under development by the parking authority to permit pay-by-phone on metered streets. As explained to The South Bayview Bulldog in January, the president of the parking authority Lorne Persiko, street parking is a more complicated process because it requires the involvement of the police. Parking enforcement officers will be trained to check the “time status” of vehicles before issuing a ticket. As reported here in January, pay-by-phone parking is popping up all over North America and has proven to be a major public service. It permits drivers to open a so-called “wallet” not too different from the accounts offered by retail businesses such as Starbucks. The convenience represented in paying for parking by phone however would seem to surpass anything now in use. With an account containing $20, for example, a motorist can park and by entering the car’s license plate and certain other information, pre-pay for as much parking as is needed. Critically, the system permits drivers who are delayed getting back to their vehicle to top-up the parking without penalty from wherever they are. It should be a boon to anyone delayed at the dentist or for old friends lingering over coffee. It will be hard to incur a ticket because the phone alerts drivers to the approaching end of their paid time. In addition, it will eliminate completely the abusive confiscation of money. At present, anyone wishing to top up time must go to the meter, buy a new ticket, forfeiting the amount left on the old one.
