On Friday, Cape Town will launch a pilot programme that will allow residents and visitors to the city to pay for kerbside parking in the central business district with mobile payments app SnapScan.
The service will be piloted in conjunction with Street Parking Solutions, the kerbside parking marshals that operate in the city.
Should the pilot be successful, all parking marshals in the Cape Town CBD will be equipped with ID cards that feature a SnapScan QR tag and the parking agent number.
“Street Parking Solutions is obliged to accept cash as payment for parking in the city, but can choose to accept other forms of payment as well. The city, however, is convinced that SnapScan will make payment for parking easier and more convenient for those road users who may not have cash on them,” says mayoral committee member for transport Brett Herron.
Launched by Standard Bank earlier this year, SnapScan was developed in Stellenbosch by FireID.
The app allows users to load a debit or credit card and pay for goods using a smartphone by scanning a merchant’s QR tag. SnapScan says that more than 14 000 businesses around the country now accept payments via SnapScan.
Motorists will be able to pay for their parking by scanning the parking marshal’s SnapCode, which is unique to each marshal. When the SnapScan transaction has been finalised, the marshal will receive an SMS on their dedicated, SnapScan-supplied mobile phone to confirm payment. Motorists will also receive a printed parking receipt.
Parking marshals accepting SnapScan payments will wear a Street Parking Solution and SnapScan logo on their bibs, says Herron.
SnapScan co-founder Kobus Ehlers says paying for street parking is a good fit for SnapScan. “This removes the need to fiddle with small change or rush to draw money.”
Cape Town has the highest SnapScan footprint in the country and several thousand users make purchases every week using the app.
SnapScan plans to roll out similar services to other cities in South Africa soon. “This is not a once-off project since we believe that SnapScan adds a huge amount of value to both users and parking service providers in this space. Since we’re still working out the finer details with our partners, however, we can’t give away too much at this stage. We are investigating similar projects in several other cities,” says Ehlers . — © 2014 NewsCentral Media
