meter or machine maintenance, cash collection, and accounting. Pay-by-phone parking also prevents people from “feeding the meter.” This is when drivers exceed the posted parking time restrictions and do not get caught because they continually keep their space paid for. When people follow the time constraints, there are more spaces open for other drivers who wish to park. Also, accurate data management provides additional resources for the parking provider. Since transactions are submitted digitally, providers have access to information regarding each customer's parking sessions. With this data, legal challenges and complaints can be significantly reduced and enforcement can be handled more accurately and efficiently. Enforcement Since pay-by-phone parking has been put into operation, several new ways of enforcing parking violations have been created: Use of an internet browser The parking provider is given access to a web page which contains a list that includes all of the active parking sessions, each vehicle’s license plate information and the amount of time that each session has been active. There are options for a smart phone’s internet browser or software for the in-vehicle computers. Pro: simple setup, easy ramp-on. Con: complex operations, failure prone. Handheld computer These computers have the capability of scanning individual license plates in a similar fashion to which a barcode is read. Pro: convenient. Con: expensive. Drive-by scanners These scanners are mounted to an enforcement vehicle and use License Plate Recognition (LPR) technology which automatically scans each parked vehicle’s license plate and identifies the vehicles parking status. Pro: labor efficient. Con: expensive, unreliable. Automatic notification Providers Major providers include RingGo and PayByPhone. See also Parking meter Pay and display References Parking Croatian inventions