Visitors to Concord’s downtown will soon be able to pay for parking on their phones instead of using a meter or kiosk.
Director of Redevelopment, Downtown Services and Special Projects Matt Walsh said the city is finalizing a contract this week with PayByPhone, a mobile application also used in Nashua for parking fees. City officials’ goal is to have the application operational in Concord by the end of January.
Implementing mobile pay for parking has long been a goal for the city, Walsh said. The cities of Nashua, Portsmouth, Keene and Hanover have already implemented mobile pay. Bringing the trend to Concord was a recommendation of the city’s 2017 strategic parking plan.
The meters and kiosks will not be going away; those who wish to use a kiosk or meter to pay will still be able to do so, but for others who want to use their phones, the PayByPhone will make paying for parking simple and more convenient.
The PayByPhone option will be available for all on-street metered parking, and for metered parking in the city’s three public parking paybygarages on State Street, School and Storrs Streets, as well as municipal parking lots.
Using PayByPhone is easy: users download the app, register their vehicle, link a credit card to the account and they’re ready to go.
When parking, users will open the app, enter the ID number of their parking zone (which will be posted on all meters and kiosks as well as in the parking garages and municipal lots), then select the amount of time they wish to purchase.
Meanwhile, that information is uploaded to the city’s parking enforcement software. When the parking enforcement officers come upon a vehicle which appears not to have paid the meter or kiosk, they will check the PayByPhone database to see if the vehicle (as identified by its license plate) has paid for parking via the mobile app.
Users will not only be able to pay for parking with their phones, but also can add time to their meter remotely from their phone and to receive warnings before their time expires. Parkers without a smart phone, or other web-enabled mobile device, will be able to call a 1-800 number to purchase parking.
There is a cost for users of PayByPhone. There will be a $0.32 transaction fee charged to the parker for each parking session purchased via PayByPhone. For example, if a parker purchased three hours of on-street parking, their total cost would be $3.32.
The city put aside $5,000 in its budget to pay for the implementation of marketing for PayByPhone. Walsh said he does not yet know how much of that cash the city will need to use. PayByPhone has agreed to design the system, furnish and install all signage and decals required to implement the program, as well as develop a marketing plan for the program, at no cost.
More information about PayByPhone can be found at phone.com.
(Leah Willingham can be reached at 369- 3322 or lwillingham@cmonitor.com.)