The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) has decided to add NFC capability to all 30,800 parking spaces in the city. The driver will only need to enter the desired parking time and tap his phone on the NFC sticker to pay the meter. The system also has the capacity to provide real-time data to help improve parking policies and provide parking guidance systems.
The capability will be provided by PayByPhone, an international provider of urban mobile payments whose system had already been deployed in the Castro district. PayByPhone has contracts with more than 60 cities, including Miami, Dallas, Vancouver, London, and Paris.
“This is one of the largest deployments of NFC technology in the United States and shows the practical benefits this technology can deliver in terms of ease of use and convenience. There has been a lot of hype around NFC recently and PayByPhone is pleased to now put the technology in the field for real world applications,” said Neil Podmore, VP of Business Development at PayByPhone. “We expect this to help kick start the more widespread adoption and understanding of the practical benefits of NFC in 2012.”
For phones not equipped with NFC, solutions will be created for mobile apps and mobile web. In addition, traditional coin payment will still be an option.