The New York Times has an article today about a service launching next month in Paris that will allow drivers to find open parking slots through their cell phone or GPS device. It seems you have to sign up with one of the services (mobile operators Orange and SFR) or the software providers like NavX. This does not work if The New York Times has an article today about a service launching next month in Paris that will allow drivers to find open parking slots through their cell phone or GPS device. It seems you have to sign up with one of the services (mobile operators Orange and SFR) or the software providers like NavX. This does not work if you are coming from another country like the Netherlands or Belgium, or if you are a casual visitor from Marseille.
But even if you are an Orange customer, it matters which Orange you belong to. From abroad, too bad! I am a customer of Orange in the Netherlands but it appears I won’t be able to use the service immediately. The article says:
At Orange, customers will be able to consult the parking database free via the Orange World portal on any compatible cellphone. The only charges will be for downloading the data. Orange can find the caller’s approximate location by determining which antenna the phone is connecting to, or the user can simply enter an address. Alexandre Nepveu, Orange’s director of marketing for telematic and automobile applications, said the company planned to add a service for cellphones equipped with GPS receivers early next year that will allow drivers to be guided to the nearest available garage much more precisely. Mr. Nepveu left open the possibility that the service could be made available to customers of foreign networks, but for now, the service will be available only in French to Orange customers with contracts in France.
This is the problem with mobile operators and their lovely walled gardens. Even the same operator puts up walls between its customers in France and those in other countries. And they wonder why people like Wi-Fi, the Internet and all the applications that developers make available to to anyone who has an Internet connection.
Now if we have a citywide Wi-Fi network and the parking slots are identified via some open mapping application or Google maps (mesh nodes identifying our location on a map), then all of us, regardless of where we come from, could take advantage of it as long as we have a Wi-Fi enabled device. Hook it up to a central payment service like Paypal and you can park your Peugeot 405 in Paris.
Another problem with the GPS function used in this parking application. I understand GPS does not work well in “urban canyons” where there are a lot of tall buildings closely packed together. Good luck finding a parking space in a place like that.
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