Dubai’s RTA rolls out new smart meters and parking scanners

Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority has recently launched a new set of smart meters that will radically alter the way motorists pay to park their cars. The new meters issue non-physical ‘e-tickets’, which don’t need to be displayed on a car’s dashboard. Drivers simply key in their vehicle’s registration using a meter’s touchscreen interface, then make a payment. The meter issues an e-ticket that is recorded on its smart system and allows the driver to remain parked until the ticket expires. Because a record of the vehicle’s parking authorisation is maintained digitally, drivers who use the system won’t have to worry about being fined for not displaying a physical ticket.

The new smart meters are designed to work in conjunction with the RTA’s recently introduced smart parking scanners. These car-mounted devices automatically scan vehicles in Dubai’s paid parking zones and detect those that don’t have valid tickets or e-tickets. Smart meter-issued e-tickets and parking scanners are more accurate and precise than traditional tickets and ticket-checking techniques. As a result, the combination of smart meters and smart parking scanners should help reduce human error and ensure that nobody is fined unfairly.

Motorists should find the new smart meters make parking much easier. What’s more, they can rest assured that the parking scanners won’t fine them unless they’re genuinely late returning to their cars.

However, the system isn’t perfect. E-tickets expire the minute the pre-paid time on them runs out and parking scanners will pick up on vehicles whose tickets have only just expired, even if the driver is hurrying back to their vehicle. Traditional paper tickets and human parking ticket inspectors left drivers with some room for error. If a driver returned to their vehicle a few minutes late for a good reason, their paper ticket would still be displayed and a parking inspector could choose to give them the benefit of the doubt and not fine them. This simply isn’t the case with automated smart-systems.

However you feel about smart meters and smart parking scanners, you’ll probably want a snazzy, up-to-date vehicle before you park anywhere in the aspirational city of Dubai. Here at Simply Car Buyers, we can help. We buy any car from any client, so you can sell us your old vehicle to raise the money for a new one.