S60 Open to new features

I lived without a private car about 5 years but I resorted 1 month ago. So I have now experienced wonderful life of searching a parking place in downtown area. Problems won’t stop when place is found. You better have suitable coins to parking meter. In Finland it’s quite easy to live without cash, plastic can be used almost everywhere so most likely there are no suitable coins in your pockets. But there is a mobile solution available. Parkit parking payment method is not a new service, but for me it was new and I used it first time today.

First you have to register to service in internet. Basically you tell your phone number which is used for authentication, address and payment method. After registration it is possible to use Parkit with mobile phone even without any extra application installed but then you have to know several different calling numbers to make a right type of payment in different areas. S60 application makes it easier. You select the Zone and you start parking time and application initiates voice call to the right service number which tells you that the car having register place XYZ-123 parking time starts, you can hung up now. It’s very easy to use. When you are leaving the place, you stop the charging from the same application. One big benefit compared to traditional system is that there is no need to estimate parking time beforehand and you don’t buy too much time.

I think the implementation is very well done. This is an excellent service which makes life easier. There is one thing I’d like to improve though. I understand that Payway Ltd has to make money, but Parkit service payment model is not nicest possible. You either pay 3€ per month or 0.8€ per parking. This basically means that service is for heavy users otherwise extra fee increases parking fee dramatically (in percentages). I wonder is there a way to use Parkit application as advertisement channel and get rid of extra fees. At least we know something very special about the users of this application.