The city of Decatur, GA, is going mobile to make fumbling for change at the city's parking meters a thing of the past.

The city tapped StreetSmart Technology LLC and MobileNow for a pilot program letting consumers put time on parking meters by dialing in on their mobile phone. Decatur's single-slot parking patrons can call a central number posted on the meter and charge their parking time remotely.

"The primary strategy for implementing the smart meters is to increase turnover in the parking spaces in downtown," said Erik Puskar, director of MobileNow, Whitestone, NY. "The City is responding to complaints from both business owners and motorists that many cars overstay the 2 hour time limit and will occupy a space for extended periods.

"The integration with the vehicle detection system of Streetsmart and the cell phone front end gives motorists another convenient payment option and as of today also prevents motorists from parking beyond the maximum time limit for the space," he said.

Consumers arrive at the parking space, call into MobileNow's automated line displayed on the meter and follow the phone prompts to enter the space number also posted there.

StreetSmart's system then posts the time on their meter.

Other mobile phone parking payment systems have lacked this feature until now.

Live operators also are available. The first visit is free.

Then, drivers can go to http://www.goparknow.com and fill out a form with their credit card of choice.

The account can be drawn down as needed, so they always have money for the meter.

The goal of the SmartMeters is to help Decatur increase its parking revenue and reduce the cost of meter enforcement.

"The mobile payments platform provides motorists with a very convenient method of payment and gives Decatur the image of a progressive city," Mr. Puskar said. "It helps the city reduce maintenance costs, increase parking turnover and is 100 percent transparent as all payments are made on-line."

This service is powered by StreetSmart technology and a mobile phone payment system from MobileNow.

The SmartMeter test uses 54 of about 400 parking meters in downtown Decatur.

The test phase will run for three months.

If the pilot is successful, the SmartMeter system eventually will expand to all of Decatur's parking meters.

Marketing tactics will include television and newspaper advertising, in-person promotion and signage at the test locations.

"The city has a whole program using meter greeters, flyers and a promotional event," Mr. Puskar said. "We have distributed wallet size cards with the information needed to initiate a parking session.

"We plan to do some Internet and mobile marketing as well and possibly enlist some marketing partners," he said.

StreetSmart Technology LLC specializes in remote asset management, helping towns and cities nationwide monitor and maintain their geographically distributed assets.

MobileNow is the exclusive U.S. distributor for digital permitting and mobile payment services developed by Now Innovations.

There are other mobile payment applications that are possible with MobileNow's system, including supporting smart metering for utilities and mobile ticketing.

"The city of Decatur's primary purpose is to make the downtown area accessible and convenient for visitors to the local businesses and restaurants," said Eric Groft, chief information officer for StreetSmart Technology, Kennesaw, GA.

"The StreetSmart and MobileNow's ParkNow system meets both of these goals by providing more available parking through increased turnover and a convenient payment system that does not increase costs for the city to manage or enforce the meters," he said.

Primarily the mobile payments allow the motorist to pay for parking without carrying coins for the meter or asking area merchants to spend a lot of time making change for them.

"It is an add-on feature to a system that increases space turnover -- the number of motorists using a space during the course of a day -- and makes parking more democratic," Mr. Groft said.

"The system is also self-funding in that the added revenues from the system provide enough revenue to more than pay for the new technology," he said.