City now allowing parking payment by phone
Posted Apr 5, 2012 02:27:55 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The city is making it easier to pay for parking and harder to get a parking ticket.
If you realize your meter is about to run dry you can now use your cell phone from anywhere in town to extend your parking time.
Any cell phone can use the service and instructions explaining how to use the new feature will be placed on all pay and display machines across the city.
The city’s new PayByPhone feature is now available anywhere pay and display parking is available and Mayor Jim Watson says its very simple to use.
“I’m not very technically inclined, but it’s actually very easy,” Watson said. “It’s a simple app. You punch in the number that you find on the side of the parking machine, then you put in the time you want to park, hit next and it’s all done.”
The PayByPhone service also includes a text messaging feature to let you know your time is just about up.
Neil Podmore, Vice President of Business Development and Marketing with Verrus Mobile Technologies helped design the service ten years ago.
“It came about when we were having coffee deciding we wanted to start a business to take advantage of the opportunities in mobile commerce,” Podmore said. “We wanted to therefore build out a service that we felt would be both popular with drivers, meet a demand for drivers, and also offer some economic benefits down the road for city’s.”
Podmore says the service is live on three continents including in city’s like Vancouver, San Francisco and London, England.
You do have to register online first by visiting www.paybyphone.com or using the smart phone app. It is free to sign-up, but a 25-cent charge will be added to every transaction.
