An Automatic-Payment Parking Service Integrated within the 3G-IMS Architecture

This paper presents an architectural proposal integrating a vehicle parking service into the 3GPP IMS and describes the development of an IMS-based prototype implementing such service. The proposed service allows automatic payments to car drivers through their WLAN-enabled IMS terminals integrated in the vehicles, on the basis of the specific parking zone where the vehicle is stationed and the duration of the stay. The proposed architecture, exploiting the security and smooth service integration features proper of IMS, will allow strong mutual user-network authentication, reliable authorization to service access by users, complete integration of the service charging mechanism with the IMS native on-line accounting infrastructure, strong protection of the service registration phase, SIP session signalling and payment transactions through the IPsec and HTTPS protocols.