City hires interim pay-by-phone parking vendor, testing along Main Ave
Tuesday, March 28, 2017
The City has hired an interim vendor to continue the pay-by-phone parking meter service while public solicitation is completed for a vendor. Weather permitting, stickers will be applied to meters in a test area along Main Avenue, between Lincoln and Wall Street beginning Tuesday, March 28. Users of the test area pay-by-phone app can provide feedback to 311 regarding any issues during usage. Stickers will be put on the remaining meters citywide beginning Monday, April 3, pending a successful test period.
Passport is used in other cities like Boston, Toronto, Detroit, and Vancouver, B.C., and has also recently signed a contract with Portland, Ore. The Passport app offers a quicker option for purchasing parking while also helping users avoid parking citations. The app also features a wallet function.
“Customers can load funds into a digital wallet which can be used to pay meter fees,” said Parking Services Director, Heather Trautman. “The wallet provides customers the ability to add and store prepaid funds in their account. When a person pays using the digital wallet, the transaction is simply deducted from the prepaid account rather than being charged to a credit or debit card in small increments.”
The new app is replacing Spokane’s previous parking app in order to provide an improved customer experience at all of the city’s 3,400 parking spaces. PassportParking will premiere a quicker registration process and more intuitive app features.
With Passport, users can:
- Pay for parking with a debit/credit card
- Fund a wallet that will decrease individual charges to credit cards
- Monitor their session
- Extend time remotely (up to the maximum allotted time)
- View all parking history
- Receive email receipts
“We are pleased to add pay-by-phone services back into our parking system,” said Jonathan Mallahan, City Neighborhood and Business Services Director. “It is exciting to see Spokane readily utilizing and accepting innovative payment options when it comes to downtown parking. We will continue to explore more opportunities to enhance user friendly parking payment options throughout the downtown.”
The free PassportParking app can be downloaded from the City website https://my.spokanecity.org/parking/; iPhone App Store and Android Google Play. Users can also manage their parking online at ppprk.com. Passport signage will also instruct users how to download and get started with the app.
