Methods and systems for electronic payment for on-street parking

A method of validating a status of a parking session of a parked vehicle comprising:

• receiving information associated with the parked vehicle from a server, the information received with a handheld terminal carried by an enforcement officer and including a vehicle identification and a parking session status;
• receiving information with the handheld terminal carried by the enforcement officer from a radio beacon emitted by an identification device placed in or on the vehicle, wherein the identification device autonomously transmits the radio beacon which is not responsive to receipt of a query signal from the handheld terminal, the radio beacon carrying vehicle identification information, and the handheld terminal is within coverage range of the radio beacon;
• determining an identity of the vehicle directly from the information carried by the beacon, or communicating with the identification device to gather information about the identity of the vehicle;
• comparing the vehicle identification received from the server with the identity determined from the information carried by the beacon;
• validating the status of the parking session of the parked vehicle, wherein validating includes determining if the vehicle identification received from the sever and the identity determined from the information carried by the beacon are the same;
• and
• displaying on the handheld terminal the status of parking sessions of a plurality of vehicles whose radio beacons are within coverage range of the handheld terminal, with no action required by the enforcement officer other than being in coverage range of the vehicles, where the coverage range is no greater than a few meters,
• wherein the radio beacon is a low power broadcast radio beacon that conforms to a protocol supported by cellular smart phones.