Cobalt Telephone Technologies gathers momentum with RingGo parking service

I’ve had an eye on RingGo for a little while. Run by Cobalt Telephone Technologies, RingGo is a car parking service paid over your mobile phone (by calling). Whilst we’ve covered Verrus in some detail on SMS Text News in the past (See: Wheelclamped after paying for parking by mobile by contributor Ben — his parking ticket was eventually quashed), I’ve been keen to take a look at one of the other market leaders.

Cobalt have been busy. Very busy. They’ve tied up a heck of a lot of the county of Oxfordshire already and they’re looking to take over other counties soon, I’m sure. For example, their service is now offered in Oxford, Banbury and Bicester, along with an array of related train stations and two motorway service stations (Oxford Services, M40 and Cherwell Valley Services, M40).

The concept is much as you might expect. Call up, and give your number plate, colour and vehicle make, parking location, desired duration and card details.

If you sign-up, however, as a RingGo Gold Member, that’s when the fun stuff arrives. You can ‘park by text’:

To use RingGo Text, go to your “favourite” parking location with your preferred vehicle simply send a text to 07781 486250 using the following pattern:

(location number) (duration & unit) (card security code) – all separated by spaces and in that exact order.

For example 1902 1d 867 or 1625 1h 541

Interestingly, this is only available to people who have registered and costs 10p a go. So they already hold your card details, thus you’re not transmitting your entire details by text — as I did with Verrus a while ago.

This is the kind of thing you can do on the train. Rock up, park your car, hop on the train and text RingGo to sort out your parking for the afternoon.

Cherwell District Council has just upgraded their pay and display car parks in Banbury and Bicester as of tomorrow (22nd May) so if you’re in the area, give it a test?

I’m also pleased to note that the general access number for calling RingGo is an 0117 normal landline. No 0870 rubbish!

I’m no fan of paying for parking, but in today’s world, it’s more or less a necessity. So it might as well be made easier and less painful. I like the sound of the RingGo service.

Let me know what you think?