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App replacing parking coupons to go on trial

This article is more than 12 months old

The days of scrambling to place an extra coupon on your car to avoid the "summons auntie" could soon be numbered.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and the Housing Board (HDB), together with the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech), announced yesterday that they are developing a parking app to act as "a transition step and provide important learning points" before the move to the next-generation Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) system.

The new satellite-based ERP system, expected to be introduced in 2020, will help facilitate street-side parking charges in addition to road charges.

The new app will calculate how much motorists have to pay based on the carpark selected and their estimated parking duration, on a per minute basis.

Motorists who end their parking session earlier will be refunded.

Parking attendants will be able to use the vehicle's number plate to check whether a motorist has paid and if the parking session is still valid.

A trial to test the "robustness" of the app will be conducted involving public-sector officers at 84 selected public carparks in the city between this and next month.

The trial is expected to be extended to members of the public later this year.

Teacher Syahidah Rahmat, 30, said of the app: "I always forget to buy parking coupons, so I think this is a good move."

First introduced in 1980, parking coupons are still in use at the 567 carparks here.

In February, Second Minister for National Development Desmond Lee said in Parliament that coupon parking will be phased out "eventually", noting that more than 70 per cent of public carparks now use the electronic parking system.

URBAN REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (URA)ERPParking