United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

Muscat Municipality is responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the parking area in the Governorate of Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. Before launching the SMS Parking Service, Muscat Municipality used to receive numerous complaints of around 22 per month from citizens and residents that when they received parking violation ticket because that they did not have loose change (coins) to paid for parking ticket at the designated parking meters. Sometimes these meters are faulty and drivers had to walk a considerable distance to locate another paid meter. These situations were rampant especially during the working hours at the Central Business District where parking spaces are limited.

By using SMS parking service the public can enjoy their shopping and attending to their work without need to worry about the coins or even they do not need to return to their car location and buy a parking ticket from the parking meters. They can simply purchase a parking ticket using SMS parking service anytime and anywhere. In doing so, Muscat Municipality aimed at providing better service to the public and introduce new way for purchase a parking ticket using SMS technology.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The idea of this project is innovation. You can buy your parking tickets by simply sending SMS containing your vehicle registration details and duration in minutes to 90091. The user can decide the time duration required for parking by adding the time duration (in minutes) required for parking in the message after inserting vehicle registration details. For example send (798 AA 60) to 90091 which means purchase a parking ticket for the vehicle with the registration number 798 AA for 60 minutes. Then the user will receive a confirmation message contains reservation details. When the inspector try to violate this vehicle using PDA, the PDA application will check in the backend database using wireless 3G/Edge connectivity if this vehicle has a valid SMS ticket. If it has valid ticket then the system will prevent violating this vehicle, otherwise the violation will be issued and printed using PDA and Bluetooth printer. SMS parking is an intelligence service in a way if the user send to purchase a parking ticket during free parking zone (Free parking zone on Friday and from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm and from 9:00 pm to 8:00 am every day), the system will inform the user that is now is free parking zone. Also if the user sends to purchase a parking ticket for example at 11:00 am with duration of 300 minutes (five hours), the system will transfer the remaining credit to the evening session. So the user will receive a confirmation message for reservation the parking from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm as the time from 1:00 pm to 4:00 is free parking zone. Moreover, if the user sends at 8:00 pm to reserve a parking for 300 minutes, the system will only reserve until 9:00 pm and will charge the user only for 1 hour not for 5 hours because after 9:00 pm is free parking zone. Parking violations drop by approximately 10% after the implementation of the SMS parking system.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The system was proposed by the Muscat Municipality through its effort in adopting Information Technology to streamline its operations and processes especially in its provision of services to the companies, other ministries organizations and the citizens. The idea of this service started after the implementation of PDA application for parking violations. Muscat Municipality approached Oman Mobile on the idea of SMS parking. There was a co-operation between Muscat Municipality and Oman Mobile to implement this service which has been launched in 6th of December 2005. After the successful launch of this service, Muscat Municipality recognized the great potential of SMS services. This led us to seriously consider the need of implementing our own SMS gateway so as to tap on the SMS services in order to provide other services for the public. Therefore, Muscat Municipality built its own SMS gateway and moved the SMS application to the new SMS gateway and resolved some technical issues which were in the old SMS parking application. One example was users do not receive the reminder messages 5 minutes from the expiry of their tickets. The new SMS gateway enabled Muscat Municipality to introduce another services like using SMS to enquire about the application status of services in Muscat Municipality. Some of the services are: building permit, construction permission, minor building permit, municipality license, rent contract, health inspection, technical inspections. User can also enquire about parking violations for a specific vehicle by sending the code “VE” followed by vehicle registration details to 90888 (For example: VE 798 AA). Last July 2008 Nawars has joined with Muscat Municipality to provide the SMS parking services to their subscribers with same number 90091. Since introduction of the services until the end of April 2009 the average number of tickets issued via our SMS service per day is 1600 tickets.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
This service was implemented to facilitate users to pay for parking tickets by sending SMS anytime and anywhere. Before introducing this service, people used to search for coins to buy parking tickets from parking meters. This process repeats itself whenever a renewal is needed. There was also problem of faulty meter which users will have to walk a distance to get the ticket. The strategy to tackle this issue is to make it convenient for users to purchase parking tickets. With Mobile penetration rate at 120% in Oman, using a solution that taps on the mobile technology is most ideal. Furthermore, there is also closed to zero training for the users as all of them are already savvy with the use of mobile phones. The payment for SMS parking tickets is done through Telecom billing platform and all the communications between billing system of telecommunication service providers (Oman Mobile and Nawras) and SMS gateway in Muscat Municipality through secured VPN tunnel. Also the communication between the users and Muscat Municipality SMS gateway is completely encrypted. The service (Muscat Municipality SMS Gateway) connected with telecommunication provider SMSC (Messaging server) via VPN to enable messaging and transfer the messages sent to 90091 to Muscat Municipality SMS Gateway. The service (SMS Parking) is connected with parking violation systems. PDA application for parking violation connected via 3G/Edge to SMS Gateway to check the existence of valid SMS parking ticket before issuing parking violation. The service includes many technologies such as: - PDA: to check the existence of valid SMS parking tickets and to issue parking violations. - Bluetooth Printer: to print parking violations. - Wireless connectivity (3G/Edge): between PDA and Muscat Municipality backend system to check for valid SMS parking tickets and to synchronize the parking violations from PDA to the backend system. - Web browsers: For public to inquiry about their SMS parking tickets details (http://mmweb.mm.gov.om/smsparking/publicquery.asp) and parking violations details (http://isupport.mm.gov.om/OA_HTML/xxmmPPSearch.jsp). For Customer support by Muscat Municipality and telecommunication service providers through the following URL (http://mmweb.mm.gov.om/smsparking/). - Mobile phones: for sending messages to purchase parking tickets. Also to inquiry about SMS parking tickets status, remaining time, help messages, and parking violations.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
Muscat Municipality approached Oman Mobile on the idea of SMS parking payment. There was an agreement of co-operation between Muscat Municipality and Oman Mobile to implement this service which was launched in 6th of December 2005. The idea in the beginning was simply to buy parking ticket for 30 minutes using SMS. Subsequently, more features were added to enable the people to write time duration (in minutes) in the message and decide the duration they required for parking. The system was with only English language then it has been changed to a bi-lingual system (Arabic and English). After launching this service, there was a problem with some users reserving a ticket but still they got a violation summon. This is due to sometimes the wireless connectivity goes down and PDA was not able to check the validity of the SMS ticket. The system has been updated since to resolve this problem.

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
Main obstacles of this project are more technical rather than users as the strategy was right in choosing the correct channel of transaction which is SMS. One example of the technical problem we faced in the project is the time difference between the PDA and SMS server. Therefore, sometimes people got fined although they had a valid parking ticket. That was because sometimes there is a small time difference (few minutes) between the PDA time and SMS application time. To resolved the issue, the PDA application has been modified in a way that the PDA time is locked from manual change and every time the inspector log in to the PDA application, the system will read the time of the SMS application and synchronized the time of the PDA to that of the SMS application time. There are also many avenues for customer support: - The service itself has in-built features like help messages to guide the customers on how to use the service in case the user send the message in a wrong format or when the customer asked for help by sending the keyword “help” to 90091. The Telecommunications service providers call centers also provide customer support (available 24 hours) for SMS Parking. Muscat Municipality signed an SLA with the Telecommunications providers to handle customers’ inquiries and provide them with the needed support through their call centers. Web interface with username and password has been given to the Telecommunication service providers to check the online status of all SMS parking tickets (valid /invalid /expired). An example of a Limited web interface (online) has been created especially for nomination for UN Public Service Awards to showcase the sample of SMS parking details and statistics is listed below Web interface URL: http://mmweb.mm.gov.om/smsparking/ Username: besteservice Password: smsparking

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
Head of Projects Section in Information Systems Directorate in the Muscat Municipality was the project manager. Infocomm, a local software company, implemented the SMS parking application. Real Soft, a local software company, implemented the PDA application for parking validation. The resources deployed were: the project manager, the project team (from Muscat Municipality Information systems Directorate, Infocomm, Real Soft, and Mobile operators), parking violation inspectors, parking violation department, mobile operators call centers, and the public (users) who park their vehicle in paid parking area. Muscat Municipality also assigned a hotline to receive the comments and complaints from the public about the service. A survey in Muscat Municipality website about the service was put up. With the feedback it enabled Muscat Municipality to improve the service with better features.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The SMS parking service is sustainable. Recently Muscat Municipality extended the same service to another telecommunication provider (Nawras) from July 2008. Therefore, more customers (Nawras subscribers) were able to utilize the service. The service is transferable as it is based on wireless connection GPRS/Edge/3G technology. So long as these networks are available, the variable in the system can be tweaked. Muscat Municipality is very proud to mention that Jordan has adopted this service and technology after their site visit to Muscat Municipality. So far the feedback has been very positive after their successfully implementation.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
There are many lessons learned from this service. The idea is so simple but Muscat Municipality was able to transfer the idea to reality by using the SMS for parking payment. This is the first of its kind implementation in the Middle East and North Africa region. Moreover, the successful of this service brought about new ideas in using SMS as a channel to deliver services. The other lesson is to start small and grow from there. Muscat Municipality has already ear marked other services like enabling Muscat Municipality employees to enquire and check on their monthly salary, leave balance, and another personal services.


Institution Name:		Muscat Municipality
Institution Type:		Government Agency
Contact Person:		Salim Al- Kalbani
Title:		Section Head
Telephone/ Fax:
Institution's / Project's Website:
E-mail:		s.kalbani@mm.gov.om
Address:
Postal Code:
City:
State/Province:
Country:		Oman

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information