With Telecom aboard Txt-a-Park on path to national coverage

Media release 14 March 2006

Telecom's introduction this week of a text parking service to their customers in Wellington is the final piece of a collaborative effort that enables Synergy and its partners to roll the technology out across the country.

Telecom's introduction this week of a text parking service to their customers in Wellington is the final piece of a collaborative effort that enables Synergy and its partners to roll the technology out across the country.

Caroline Dewe, Synergy's director of transaction services said Synergy has been working with Telecom to link its billing system so that Telecom mobile users can now pay for their parking in Wellington and Auckland using their mobile phones at selected machines.

“With Telecom now on board it's available to everyone in Wellington and Auckland with a mobile phone.

“Our goal to expand the service to all mobile users in New Zealand is on track. Council trials of this service have proven uniformly successful and have fast-tracked decisions to roll-out pay-by-phone options across each city. The level of enquiries and positive feedback that Synergy (together with founding partner CHS - Cash Handling Systems) has received from other New Zealand councils indicates that we are on target to achieve our vision of a nationwide, ubiquitous hub for mobile payments for parking services.

“The fact that no pre-registration is required makes it a world leading solution as the immediate uptake was significant. Auckland City Council announced a 27 percent increase in revenue from trial machines, along with increased customer satisfaction. Over 300 Txt-a-Park capable machines are now available in Auckland as a result of this success,” Caroline Dewe said.

The service was introduced to Wellington two years ago and to Auckland last year, and was initially launched to Vodafone customers.

The service is a collaborative effort between Telecom and TXT-a-Park founding partners, Synergy International, CHS and Vodafone New Zealand Ltd.

Telecom's Head of Mobile Marketing, Kevin Bowler says Txt-a-Park is particularly convenient for business people who need an itemised list of expenditure for expenses and audit purposes. “It's a great example of mobile commerce making day-to-day life easier,” Mr Bowler said.

Wellington City Council Parking Manager, Wayne Tacon, says the move towards accepting electronic transactions (Txt-a-Park and credit card) has been a highly successful partnership. The Council is committed to supporting leading-edge technology to provide innovative solutions for Wellington.

Synergy's system provides detailed reports about parking patterns. This information tells the Council more about parking demand and will enable the city to continually improve its parking services. Wellington City Council has replaced 296 of its 480 pay-and-display machines with Txt-a-Park capable machines which can also take cash and credit card payments.

The parking application, built and hosted by Synergy, is based on intellectual property developed by a joint venture with Ericsson, and has overcome many of the difficulties of other text-based parking systems. Txt-a-Park is designed to support access by multiple mobile operators and can easily be adopted by local authorities and parking providers to offer an identical user experience in New Zealand and overseas.

Caroline Dewe said this project is in line with Synergy's new focus on transaction and payment services, and the development of products that provide business solutions with a worldwide reach. She says Synergy have received expressions of interest from Australia and the United Kingdom as well as from councils all over New Zealand.

Synergy is a leading provider of ‘industrial-strength' transaction and payment systems and services with offices in New Zealand, Singapore and London.
ENDS

 

Background

Cash Handling Systems, New Zealand's largest supplier of parking machines, has integrated a GPRS and CDMA modems into the new generation machine that communicates with Synergy's Txt-a-Park application.

Additional functionality allows remote machine monitoring and fault reporting in real time. Advantages for councils include the ability for access to cash collection information online for each machine. Billing systems for any telecommunication providers need to verify that the customer has available credit to make the payment while the transaction is underway.

The machines are a solid aluminium, vandal-resistant construction, and run on solar/battery power. The equipment can be designed to incorporate other payment options including credit cards, notes and other card systems.