Sharjah: Sharjah Municipality on Monday announced that motorists will be able to reserve paid municipal parking spaces for up to five hours in advance beginning December 12.
For the present, only motorists with etisalat-registered mobile numbers will be able to avail the advance-booking service.
Other users will be soon be able to reserve parking spaces for more than one hour.
Motorists will receive a virtual permit via SMS and billed directly to their mobile phone bill in case of post-paid mobile subscribers or, alternatively, the booking fee will be deducted from available etisalat credit for prepaid mobile subscribers.
Ali Ahmad Abu Gazien, director of Public Parking Department at Sharjah Municipality, said the service is being added to improve the quality of life to the fullest in the emirate.
To book, customers can write a short text message with the source and number of the plate and then the number of hours to be booked and then send the booking to number 5566.
Sharjah Municipality has simplified the service, where etisalat and du users with UAE private plate numbers can use this service without registration.
GCC countries and non-private plate numbers need to register with the smsParking service.
As soon as the account is activated, a user can add multiple vehicles to his account for which he can pay the parking fees through the mobile by sending an SMS.
Also, registration is available for all UAE private and non-private plate numbers and GCC countries.
A pre-defined format is required to be sent to the number 5566 and motorists will receive the parking virtual permit details via SMS.
Motorists will receive a reminder message 10 minutes before the permit expires.
Terms of use
1. smsParking service is available for etisalat [and later for Du] registered mobile numbers. If motorist has a prepaid (i.e. Pay as you go) mobile number, then he should ensure having sufficient balance to purchase the virtual permit or they will receive an error message highlighting “Transaction Failed”.
2. Users with non-private or GCC countries plate numbers need to register in order to be able to use the smsParking service.
3. For a motorist to purchase a virtual permit using the mobile phone, he needs to send an SMS in the exact format as illustrated in the user guide. Wrong message format will lead to rejection of the transaction.
4. User will be charged a transaction fee of 38 fils for each SMS sent to 5566.
5. Purchasing a parking ticket and extension is available only for one hour [at present time] and will be available for more than one hour soon. In case the user didn’t mention the one hour tariff, then the smsParking system will automatically calculate the same tariff (1 hour) as a default and the user will be charged accordingly.
