Westminster Coun?cil...

Westminster Coun?cil in London is paving the way, and other local authorities across the country are watching with interest.

The council is scrapping coin-fed machines in the capital’s West End in exchange for a cashless system. It will make searching for loose change at the roadside a thing of the past, with motorists paying via mobile phone.

Westminster is axing the traditional meters after a successful six-month trial, plus a poll of drivers which found three-quarters would rather pay by phone.

To use the new system, motorists have to first set up a parking account, which can then be debited by SMS text alerts sent from their mobiles. These would include registration num?bers and the parking bay reference, marked on signs on the street. That information is then automatically sent straight to wardens’ hand-held units, so they can check if owners have paid. A traffic light display on these devices sees number plates of cars with time left highlighted in green, with those which have expired shown in red.

Motorists can even make top-up payments if they need to extend their stay in the space. Council bosses say text reminders will be sent a few min?utes before a driver’s time runs out.

All 3,700 of Westminster’s meters will be replaced with the cashless sys?tem, or the authority’s latest chip and pin units, by the end of next year.

Removing coin-fed machines from the roadside is expected to eliminate theft and vandalism. However, the chip and pin meters could still be open to fraud – especially ‘skimming’, where the data from a card’s magnetic strip is electronically copied on to another.

A Westminster spokesman told us: “Small cameras can be installed to monitor these machines if we suspect that they are being targeted.”