SMS opens toilet doors in bid to stop vandals

chris

If you find yourself on a motorway in Finland and you're desperate for a whizz, make sure you have your mobile phone on you.

In a bid to curb vandalism in roadside service stations, the Finnish Road Administration has decided to get tough. It has developed a system where you have to send off a text message in order to open the doors to roadside toilets along the Highway 1 motorway in Western Finland.

The system was introduced in January following numerous counts of vandalism, breakages, arson attempts, and thefts in buildings housing public toilets for motorists, Helsingin Sanomat reports.

To get access to the roadside toilets, you send off an SMS message with the word 'OPEN' to the number given on the toilet door. The call is directed to a modem, which then sounds a buzzer. The charge is the same as sending a standard SMS message, and there's no additional charge to use the toilet.

According to road maintenance expert Juha Mäki, this kind of system is so far only available in the Turku region of Finland. He told Helsingin Sanomat that the SMS system should significantly reduce vandalism problems, especially as the mobile phone numbers will also be saved for a short amount of time by the Road Administration.

Source tech.co.uk

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Jumile

Nokia must be laughing all the way to the bank: "All your public facilities are belong to us!"

If you're like me and are sick of carrying a phone all the time for work, and leave it at home whenever you can, you're screwed.

2cvbloke

Whatever happened to pulling over in a lay-by and going behind a bush?

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rolfw

I don't think that's a bad idea, I use my mobile for parking in central London and also for the congestion charge, so why not for toilets, although it isn't quite so relevant over here, as there aren't the small rest areas like on the continent.

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Jumile

That's because then they'd all be used for dogging.

zorba

So what your saying is, if you are incontinent on the continent you should have a mobile if you're mobile.

rolfw

LOL, spot on.

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dig deep

Nice one Zorba

Phones are more and more used today in many ways outside making a call

We can park by the phone, and we can buy a train/bus ticket (cheaper) by the same way.

If U find a nice toilet it is worthwhile the call - sometimes it is worth a fortune