Asbury Park, NJ is a popular vacation destination for New York and New Jersey residents. The city’s historical boardwalk, concert offerings, and a plethora of bars and restaurants attract visitors and residents year round.
While Asbury Park had implemented another mobile parking solution in 2012, the city knew it could enhance the user experience for its parkers and enforcement officers. The city was seeking a mobile payment parking solution that would support its strategy to create a better parking experience for residents, employees and visitors.
“I think mobile payment parking is the way of the future and if we can make that as easy as possible, it will be more cost effective for communities, and the end result is a better user experience.”
Michael Manzella, Transportation Manager, City of Asbury Park
With Passport
With the Asbury PARK mobile application, powered by Passport, the city was able to create a better user experience and subsequently tripled utilization in the first three months since launch.
Pay station and permit data was integrated into Passport’s mobile monitoring app and its back-end management platform to help enforcement officers and administrators manage parking citations.
Quick Implementation & NCPA partnership
Passport and Asbury Park teams worked together to quickly implement a branded parking solution to meet the city’s fast-approaching Memorial Day Weekend deadline.
A primary contributor to the fast project implementation was Asbury Park’s National Cooperative Purchasing Alliance (NCPA) membership, which eliminated a time-consuming RFP process. Passport is the preferred mobile payments partner from NCPA, enabling NCPA members like Asbury Park to quickly and cost-effectively procure and roll out its mobile payment solution. The city was able to avoid having to go through a lengthy RFP process but still received a competitive price for the application. From initial introduction to app launch, the entire implementation process took less than three months.
“In a word, [the implementation process was] phenomenal…I knew [our timeline] was going to be aggressive…the result was nothing short of fantastic. Major kudos to the [Passport] implementation team. We had weekly calls, there was constant communication…Really, above and beyond customer service.”
– Michael Manzella, Transportation Manager, City of Asbury Park
Branded Application
With Passport, Asbury Park was able to create a branded application with a customized name and logo, creating a cohesive experience for the users of its app. Passport dedicated a marketing and design team to create branding elements like the logo and color pallette, develop marketing elements like signage and brochures, and execute a PR plan to launch the app.
Ease of Use
The Asbury PARK app also has features that the city’s prior app lacked and that citizens desired: multiple payment options, email receipts, reminders and alerts for session expiration, and the ability to extend sessions remotely.
Uptime and Reliability
Through Passport’s mobile enforcement tool, Asbury Park field officers have access to real-time data and visibility into all payment types, so they can be confident in the system, connectivity, and data they receive while enforcing– an issue that impacted citation accuracy in the past with the previous vendor.
“Reliability was an issue [with our previous app]…we needed a reliable, robust solution that Passport was able to provide.”
– Michael Manzella, Transportation Manager, City of Asbury Park
Accurate, Real-Time Data
With Passport’s back-end reporting platform, administrators are able to monitor daily transactions and financial reports, as well as research individual transactions, which allows them to fully understand their parking operations at all times.
The app is seamlessly integrated with the city’s meters and permits systems, and showcases real-time data which allows officers to see if a parker has paid through the app, a meter, or a permit to ensure accurate citation issuance.
“We’ve only received positive feedback from users [about the Asbury PARK app].It’s been a really positive experience and I think it impacts how visitors and residents view pay parking as a whole…and it made a world of difference to how people view the parking situation in Asbury Park.”
– Michael Manzella, Transportation Manager, City of Asbury Park
Where Are They Now?
About a year after the launch of the city’s branded app, Asbury Park worked with the Passport marketing team to install new signs and paystation decals around the city. Over the following six months, app utilization nearly doubled to just under 50% with an average of 35,000 mobile transactions a month. As a result, Asbury Park experienced an 86% increase in mobile parking transactions from its first to second year using the branded parking app, and revenue is up 19% from last year.
Increase in mobile pay parking transactions and revenue
While the city still has 120 multi-space meters for 3,000 parking spaces, officials believe that the steady increase in app utilization is a clear indication that they can expect hardware maintenance costs to lower overtime, ultimately eliminating the need for new hardware all together.