No more fumbling for quarters or racing back to the car to plug in spare change.
That’s the appeal — or at least the sales pitch — of a new service enabling drivers to feed parking meters with a phone call.
Called Parkmobile, the fee-based service launched in February for on-street parking at Atlantic Station, the Midtown shopping and dining complex.
Decatur has been testing a similar service from another provider, MobileNOW!, since 2008, and coinless technology has been used in Europe for years. Vancouver-based Verrus Mobile Technologies handles such a service in Miami, and Chicago has some downtown meters that take credit cards.
Parkmobile’s arrival could herald wider adoption in Atlanta. Lanier Parking, which manages the meters and decks at Atlantic Station, plans to roll out the pay-by-phone service at dozens of its lots in metro Atlanta in the next few weeks. Among them: the lot at 736 Peachtree St., near the Fox Theatre, said Tim Walsh, president of Lanier.
With Parkmobile, people park and then call a phone number to register. They give their license plate number and credit card information, then “activate” parking by using Atlantic Station’s parking code. When they leave, they call the number again to end their parking session and get billed for the time they were there.
Any cellphone will do, said Albert Bogaard, CEO of Parkmobile USA, the Atlanta-based division of Netherlands-based Parkmobile International.
Atlantic Station’s general manager, Michael Diamantides, said the technology is a response to the frustration felt by shoppers who don’t have quarters, and by local shops or businesses that don’t make change.
That can lead to lost sales and bad feelings, he said.
People still will be limited to two hours of parking on Atlantic Station’s upper-level streets, said Diamantides.
Parking is currently $3 per hour, he said, whether using the pay-by-phone service or plugging in quarters. It costs an additional 35 cents per transaction to use the Parkmobile service, which is how the company makes its money, said Bogaard.
Bogaard said one of the most frequently asked questions is whether payments register properly. The meter flag doesn’t turn from red to green when the cellphone service is used. But enforcement personnel can use a handheld device to look up the license plate number and confirm parking is paid, he said.
“You really need to educate people on how it works,” he said. “The nice thing is you can stay in your car, rain or shine, and you don’t need quarters.”
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter who used the service last weekend was charged $2.65 to park for 50 minutes, and there were no mishaps.
Diamantides said he’s heard no complaints about the service so far.
Parkmobile is backed by two major investors.
John A. Fentener van Vlissingen, a Dutch billionaire who built BCD Travel into the world’s third largest travel agency and has been involved in several high-profile Atlanta real estate deals, invested in Parkmobile after looking for a “modern way” to charge for parking at airport Park ’N Fly lots that he owns, said Bogaard.
Bogaard said a license plate reading technology developed by Parkmobile likely will be launched later this year at Park ’N Fly lots near Atlanta’s airport.
In January, Ford Motor Co.’s executive chairman William Clay Ford Jr. invested in Parkmobile USA through his investment firm, Fontinalis Partners. Mark Schulz, also a founding partner of Fontinalis and a former Ford president, became chairman of Parkmobile USA.
Parkmobile also operates in Grand Rapids, Mich., and Albuquerque, N.M., and more than 100 cities, including Amsterdam, London, Berlin and Athens, said Bogaard.
A spokeswoman for the city of Atlanta said it may consider the service for its 2,500 metered spaces, though there are no current plans.
Linda Harris, Decatur’s assistant director for community and economic development, said the city is happy with the rival system it has tested and is working on making it permanent. The MobileNOW! system uses a prepayment system, in which people deposit money in parking accounts that are debited as they use the meters.
How it works
1. Park, then call 1-877-727-5714 to register.
2. Enter license plate number and credit card information.
3. Parkmobile will prompt you for Atlantic Station’s parking code, 1001.
4. Parkmobile will send a text message confirming your new account.
5. When you leave, call the number back and a voice command will ask if you want to stop parking. Say yes.
6. You can check your account status online at: www.parkmobile.com/us or download a mobile app at www.parkmobileapp.com.
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