Government to conduct trial of mobile app for parking charges

SINGAPORE: The Government will be conducting a trial of a mobile application that will allow motorists to pay for their parking charges using their mobile devices.

For a start, the app will be tested among public sector officers in May and June, at selected public car parks in the city area that still require paper coupons, announced the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), the Housing and Development Board (HDB) and the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) in a joint news release on Monday (May 15). 

The car parks include those in Amoy Street, Circular Road, Emerald Hill Road and Duxton Road.

“The mobile app will provide more convenience for motorists as they need not return to their vehicles to add more coupons to extend their parking session,” said the agencies. 

All motorists have to do is key their vehicle number into the app, select the car park, indicate their parking duration and start parking.

According to the agencies, the app automatically calculates the charges that motorists have to pay based on their parking duration on a per minute basis.

A refund will be given if they choose to leave the carpark earlier than the duration that was keyed in. Likewise, motorists can extend the duration of their parking session without having to return to the vehicle. 

Among the issues authorities said they will be testing is the payment module, “to be confident of its robustness before we extend the trial to the general public.”

They added that the plan is to extend the trial to members of the public later this year.