Look, Ma, No NFC: Parking Payment Via a Smart Phone App

It was only a matter of time before mobile payments came to the parking industry. And no, the latest application doesn’t depend on near-field communication (NFC), a contactless technology that has been ensnarled in endless disputes between banks and mobile operators and is reportedly being eyed by high-flying players like Apple Inc. and Google Inc.

Consumers can use their iPhone to pay for parking at selected lots using CallToPark, an application released this week by OmniPark, a parking- management products and services company. The app is available on Apple’s online App Store. The company also is developing a CallToPark app for Android as well as a text-message version of the service.

To pay for parking, the smart-phone user enters the parking-lot location and his license-plate number into the CallToPark app. The user then pays for a specific amount of time using any major credit or debit card. Motorists also can use CallToPark by calling a phone number posted at the parking lot and entering a PIN.

Consumers can set up a CallToPark account using the app or online at the CallToPark Web site.

Consumers typically pay a 30-cent convenience fee for each CallToPark transaction, says Russell A. Page, president of Spokane, Wash.-based  Imprezzio Inc., parent company of OmniPark. There is no cost for downloading the application.

CallToPark charges no fees to parking-lot operators.

CalltoPark acts as a payment gateway for the parking lot, Page says. Gateways funnel transactions from merchants to back-end payment processors and at the same time typically perform risk-detection routines to control fraud. The parking lots can either use their own merchant banks or CallToPark will set them up with accounts at area banks.

Using the CallToPark app, consumers also can locate a parking lot accepting CallToPark. CallToPark locations will show up as pinpoints on the application’s GPS map. The application displays each lot’s parking rates and also notifies consumers via their smart phone if they need to pay for additional time.

“You can be stuck in a meeting for hours or still shopping and have a reminder alert pop up on your smart phone [to] allow you to extend your parking,” Page says.

OmniPark says its manages more than 600 parking locations in Oregon and Washington, but smart-phone users can lobby for a lot anywhere in the country to start accepting the service by pressing the “Send Request” button in the app. The company then forwards the request to the parking-lot operator.

Parking-lot operators can use CallToPark as part of OmniPark’s backend enforcement collection systems or integrate it into their existing systems, Page says.  OmniPark offers a suite of products for parking lots, including electronic pay boxes.