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New parking meters which alert the authorities if you overstay your time and let you know you've been fined by ringing your mobile phone, are set bring motorists, who try to cheat the system, to book.

A science-fiction nightmare? No, this could soon be the reality of urban parking in Britain as technology already in use in France, where smart meters are flourishing, is introduced.

About 60 French councils have installed a system developed by Technolia, an engineering company, that detects the presence of vehicles and alerts police if drivers stay over their allotted time.

“We are revolutionising parking with the individual monitoring of spaces,” said Claude Zandona, the company's managing director.

The meters create magnetic fields capable of registering the metal mass of vehicles. They have a direct computer link to a police station.

Mr Zandona, who said he wanted to introduce the technology to Britain and a number of other countries said: “The police can go and sit in a café if they like and just pop out when they get a message to say a car is parked illegally. They have an 80 per cent chance of finding the car still there between 12 and 18 minutes after the limit, we have found.”