Parking goes GREEN!

Do you see the green poles in the picture above? They are simple and environmental-friendly parking fee payment terminals in Taiping, a town located midway between Ipoh and Penang in West Malaysia.

All the motorists need to do is to insert the required number of coins into the coin slot, depending on their intended parking duration and the clocking meter on the terminal will start counting down. The parking attendants do spot check to ensure honesty of motorists.

In Singapore, using cash cards to pay for parking fees is gaining popularity and is progressively replacing the use of paper parking coupons. This is certainly a positive step towards environmental protection. But, I am just wondering when the parking system would go totally paperless in Singapore.

When it is totally paperless, it means that all the parking attendants would be out of job except for some who may still be employed to inspect on the validity of the season parking coupons categorically used by motorists in the public housing estates.

I envisage that one day, the season parking coupons would be replaced by the cash card as well. It is just a matter of programming the cash card similar to what has been done to the ez-Link card, to indicate that it is for season parking besides the normal ad hoc parking.