Since a parking app replaced the use of coupons in more than 1,000 public carparks in Singapore in 2017, these spaces essentially became barrier-free smart carparks (Barrier-free smart carpark system launched at NTU, Sept 17).

Parking.sg is not used for parking at carparks already installed with the Electronic Parking System (EPS).

Now that cloud-based number plate recognition systems are widely available, it is time that the EPS be eliminated and motorists encouraged to use the parking app for such carparks.

It was reported that even without parking gantries, the smart carpark system used at Nanyang Technological University can capture car number plates on entry and exit via video technology. This eliminates the need for enforcement officers to patrol such carparks to check on payment.

Perhaps the Government Technology Agency, which developed Parking.sg, could work with ST Engineering, which developed the NTU system, to roll out one system nationwide.

This way, visitors to NTU do not have to download another app just to park there. If different carparks adopt different smart, barrier-free systems, our mobile devices will be flooded with single-use apps.

Leveraging a single parking app for all public access carparks in Singapore will take us a step closer to our vision of a Smart Nation.

Liu Fook Thim