Technobiography

Parking Ticket via Credit Card

In Sydney, they don’t have people in small huts at the entrance of a parking lot to give and collect a parking ticket. They have a parking meter that issues parking tickets. The ticket must be placed on the dashboard of the car while parked.

Here, my brother buys a parking ticket using a credit card.

On the display of the machine, I saw the message “Connecting…” . I surmise that a wireless connection is being made to verify the credit card. Similar to the “phone call” that a POS machine makes from the mall to the credit card company’s database. Similar to my Taxis in Singapore story.

But the credit card wouldn’t verify at this first machine. We had to walk across the parking lot to another machine and finally we got a parking ticket.

Hmmmm…. This is something G-Cash and Smart Money could possibly do. They’ve done this before using SMS to purchase a can of Coke. What more can we do? Purchase movie or concert tickets, perhaps? Purchase bus or boat tickets?

ka edong
looking back at Sydney