Protocol for Self-Redemption of Free Parking in Smart Shopping Malls

Abstract

In many shopping malls in metropolitan cities, a customer is entitled to free parking after spending a certain amount in the shopping mall. To redeem free parking, the customer presents the sales receipts to a staff member in a service counter and this staff member processes these sales receipts (e.g., checks the date and calculates the total amount of spending) for redeeming free parking. In this paper, we propose a self-redemption protocol by which customers can redeem free parking by themselves. This protocol applies digital signature and QR code to transform the sales information from human-readable form to machine-readable and non-repudiated form, such that redemption can be handled by a low-cost computer called redemption machine. This self-redemption protocol gives win-win outcomes to both the shopping malls (which enhance the malls and save manpower cost) and the customers (who enjoy better convenience and smaller waiting time).