Smart cards have a wide range of uses and easily demonstrate the most widespread use of Contactless technology throughout everyday society. The use of smart cards to pay for parking may not be a new innovation but several major cities in both the developed and developing word have recently adopted different variations of this mode of payment.

Offering efficiency to the public is a vital hook for smartcard use so when coupled with payment for public transport the idea of a completely cash free and contactless journey becomes a reality. This reality is now happening on the BART transport network in San Francisco where the EZ Rider pre pay smart card can now also be used at fifteen new parking meters installed across the system.

Two further American towns have also introduced the technology. In Des Moines, Iowa, over a 1000 parking meters have been replaced with new machines that accept both smart cards and coins and Springfield, Illinois now offers a system where a chipcard dispensed on arrival at car parks can be used both for payment and to exit the barrier on leaving.

This method of payment is also being rolled out in Kampala, Uganda where the new technology is being utilized as a first with no type of parking meters installed up to now.

The attraction of contactless parking is an obvious one but how long will it be before one of the major card companies starts to incorporate this feature in their products?