You can do all sorts of useful and less useful things with a smartphone. In the city of Ebersberg and the municipality of Markt Schwaben, there is now an additional function for mobile phone owners: You can buy your parking ticket immediately with a click in the corresponding app. This saves drivers the hassle of searching for small coins – and they can even save money.
If you want to use digital parking, you need the “Parkster” application on your mobile phone, which is available free of charge for Android and Apple devices in the respective app stores. To park, the driver enters his license plate number and the parking time in the app on his smartphone. Unlike with a conventional printed parking ticket, drivers can use their mobile phones to extend the parking time within the maximum parking time. “So no more reason to fear a ticket if you want to stay in the café or if it takes longer in the waiting room,” as the city of Ebersberg writes in a press release. If the driver returns to his vehicle earlier, he can also end the digital parking ticket early and save unnecessary parking fees. In Markt Schwaben there is also the classic “pretzel button” in the app: Drivers can buy a free ticket for ten minutes for quick errands.
“With mobile phone parking, we are creating a convenient alternative for citizens to paying at the parking machine,” says Markt Schwaben’s mayor Michael Stolze (non-party). His Ebersberg colleague Ulrich Proske (independent) adds: “Cell phone parking makes parking easier for citizens.” It is also not necessary to enter sensitive account data in the app. Payment is made on account or by credit card. For this purpose, the motorist receives a monthly invoice from “Parkster” by post or e-mail, which lists his parking activities in detail. The driver can decide whether he wants to receive this invoice by email or by post for a fee.
But anyone who thinks that the new technology is an invitation to black-out parking is wrong. The municipal traffic monitoring system can see all parking tickets purchased via the “Parkster” app in real time. Employees can see immediately for each vehicle whether a ticket has been purchased and whether it is still valid.