Having options is everything. It’s options that give you the choices you want. Think about it. When you’re out to dinner on a Friday night, the menu should provide you with an adequate amount of appetizer, dinner, and dessert choices to cater to everyone’s palette. The idea of having options is not only significant in the food industry, but the transportation industry as well. Now we have options to pay for parking.

Today, when you park your car, you assume you won’t need to carry coins or cash with you. As technology progresses, there are are more readily available options for parkers. Want to say bye to your loose change? Go for it. Would you rather use your smartphone to handle your parking transactions? You can. With choices readily available, expect to have the ability to tailor your entire parking experience to fit your needs.

With mobile technology rapidly progressing and gated ticketing gaining momentum, there’s plenty of traction in the transportation industry. For users, this means they have a variety of parking payment choices. For agencies, they have the ability to provide users with convenient options:

Pre-Pay

Mobile payment technology is taking over the transportation scene. With the ability for users to handle everything from the convenience of their fingertips, the popularity to pay via mobile device is not only appreciated, but expected. Utilizing Passport’s mobile parking payment app, users not only have the ability to pay for their parking via smartphone, but they can also extend and manage their session and access parking history all through the app. Stuck in an interview downtown? No time to feed the meter? No worries.

Through the app, you can easily extend your parking session to prevent citations and even access your parking history and receipts. For users, the simplicity of handling their entire parking experience through the app provides them with the control they need.

“It’s the comfort of having everything in your phone. I used to always carry a camera because I love taking pictures. But with my phone, I don’t need my camera anymore. If I can just pay with my phone, why carry a wallet? It makes everything so easy,” said Amelia Chung, Office Manager at Passport.

On the contrary, agencies and municipalities alike benefit from the flow of mobile transactions. Through mobile payment technology, such as Passport’s, they can easily access data through backend systems. Passport’s backend portal, Opsman, provides parking enforcement officers and decision makers with the functionality and flexibility to streamline workflow for both entities. This not only promotes connectivity, but also greatly enhances efficiency.

Point of Sale

In the past, single meters per parking spot was the standard norm. To pay for parking, parkers would need to use coins to begin their parking session. Today, as coin parking meters make their exit from the parking industry, many agencies are switching to kiosks rather than the ‘legacy’meters. The kiosks provide a point of sale where parkers can pay via credit/debit card or with cash or coins. The single kiosk not only makes it more efficient for parking enforcement officers to keep track of payment and parking sessions, but is easily accessible for parkers.

As more and more kiosks enter the parking industry, it’s evident that it’s not only simple for enforcement officers, but for users as well.

Gated / Ticketed System

Ticketed systems give users an option to skip the kiosk or pay station and enter the parking lot through the gate. For many lots, particularly for businesses, it provides users with access to their lot by supplying them with either a code or pass that allows them to enter the parking lot.  This option benefits residential areas, commuter and business lots, and other parking areas that need gated systems.

Today, “most commuter stations are full of permit holders and daily parkers. The integration of everything into one portal, including the digital permitting aspect will be a very important part of how technology transforms”, said Tom Zawacki, co-owner of Total Parking Solutions.

With the progression of mobile technology, there will be a lift in adoption as more users begin to pay for parking with their mobile device. Paying by phone is on the rise and with a variety of options available, parker’s now can take transportation into their own hands.