Vancouver exploring new pay-parking methods, such as Compass Card

City of Vancouver exploring new pay-parking methods, including Compass Card possibility

City of Vancouver pay-parking station for curbside street parking. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

The payment methods and flexibility for City of Vancouver pay parking on curbside metered street parking spaces could change considerably in the near future.

The municipal government is in the process of seeking mobile parking payment providers, which would add to the existing payment options offered by PayByPhone.

“The city’s contract with PayByPhone is still in place. The intent of this request for proposal [RFP] is to secure additional mobile parking payment providers to provide customers with more payment options and to provide system redundancy if an app were to be temporarily unavailable,” Alina Cheng, manger of parking management for the City of Vancouver, told Daily Hive Urbanized.

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The new supplier will be required to offer a mobile app and/or a browser-based app, and preferably also a telephone-based interactive voice-response system. They must provide users with multiple mobile payment options, including credit, debit, and e-wallet.

The existing mobile payment system takes payment only by credit card.

New ability to end parking sessions early and not get charged

The city is asking prospective bidders to incorporate a new functionality in their mobile parking payment system that enables users to end their parking session before the time of expiry.

This would also mean users would not be charged for the parking session time that they do not use, which would encourage greater use of the mobile system, provide the public with improved value, and possibly encourage parking turnover.

Additionally, the supplier would be asked to create a system to address the issue when users input the wrong license plate number when purchasing a parking session. The city states this is the most common error, which leads to a poor customer experience and results in a waste of city resources – when parking enforcement officers write a ticket, along with the time subsequently spent to resolve such issues.

Another identified feature to reduce the volume of errors when paying for parking through mobile methods is geolocation, which would reduce the amount of input required, such as providing a user with a small list of parking spaces to choose from based on where they are located by GPS. PayByPhone already offers a similar geolocation feature, including a map.

Pre-paying for parking

City staff note they are interested in adding pre-payment options for parking sessions, specifically enabling users to park at metered parking spaces in the morning, before paid parking comes into effect – such as a scenario where someone arrives at 8 am when parking is free, but would like to remain at the spot and pay for parking after 9 am when paid parking is in effect.

For added convenience, there is also interest in allowing users to pre-pay for the next day’s parking after parking at the spot the previous evening.

Currently, users of the PayByPhone app can only add more time to their parking session, which eliminates the need to rush back to their car to add more time to the meter.

Accounts-based parking

The possible incorporation of new accounts-based processing capabilities could potentially enable the city to offer payment options for unique groups of users, which would be separate from how the general public pays for parking. It could offer general eligibility to park at a space in a specific area, access to different rates including free parking, and longer or shorter maximum allowable parking rules.

Some examples of unique user groups include on-duty city staff and inspectors, as well as construction workers, commercial vehicles, and resident-authorized visitors, who would be able to access different rates and parking durations. It is also noted that construction workers and commercial vehicles could potentially use corporate accounts through corporate credit cards and invoicing.

Compass Card capability?

City staff state there could be an opportunity in the future to add TransLink’s Compass Card as a parking-payment option. But this would, of course, require TransLink’s approval.

It is suggested that the municipal government would like to retain this payment option possibility in case TransLink allows for the expanded use of the Compass Card.

This future possibility likely depends on a complete overhaul of the Compass fare-payment system. As the existing Compass technology is reaching the end of its lifespan and is near capacity, TransLink is in the process of considering a complete overhaul of the system later this decade, which could cost over $200 million.

Such a proposed upgrade, including more account-based processing capabilities, could not only take the technology to the next level to enable new fare products and other features, but also introduce new physical infrastructure such as the latest fare gate and bus card reader hardware.

The limitations of the existing Compass technology do not enable the proliferation of the system to be used as a payment option for retail, dining, services, parking, and other businesses and services, similar to the renowned Octopus Card in Hong Kong.

Downward trend in using coins for parking payment

According to city data, there has been a pronounced gradual decline in the use of coins to pay for meter parking – falling from roughly $2 million per month in 2017 to about $500,000 per month in 2023. Over the same period, the use of mobile parking methods has grown from about $2 million per month to roughly $3.5 million per month.

Parking revenue collected through the ever-increasing use of pay stations is now roughly half of coin revenue.

On an annual basis, there are about 17 million mobile parking transactions, and 330,000 interactive voice-response parking transactions.

Monthly pay parking revenue from different payment methods. (City of Vancouver)

vancouver pay parking monthly transactions

Monthly mobile pay parking transactions. (City of Vancouver)

Since 2021, the city has been replacing traditional, unconnected, coin-only, single-space parking meters with pay station machines that serve many curbside street parking spaces on a city block.

The old meters are prone to vandalism and theft, specifically by individuals who jam the coin slot so that when drivers try to park, their coins in the meter do not fully drop down. These individuals then fish out the coins, which is costly to both drivers and the municipality.

There are currently just over 10,000 metered parking spaces on public streets, including 8,400 traditional, unconnected, coin-only, single-space parking meters; 1,500 connected, single-space parking meters; eight multi-space unconnected, coin-only, pay-by-license plate pay stations (serving 50 parking spaces); and 17 communications-enabled, multi-space, pay-by-license-plate pay stations (serving 200 parking spaces).

It has also been revealed that the city’s parking enforcement officers make an average of about 6,500 individual queries per day using their handheld devices to check whether metered parking has expired for a license plate.

According to the city’s draft 2024 budget, total revenues collected from pay parking – including street parking, parking lots, and parkades – will account for 4% or $78.4 million of the municipality’s $2.155 billion in revenue. This is up from $69 million in 2023, and $74 million in pre-pandemic 2019.

But street parking revenues continue to be lower than 2019’s total of $63.5 million, with the city forecasting $61.7 million for 2024 – up from $54.5 million in 2023 due to continued pandemic impacts.

The increase in parking revenue in 2024 will be from the result of the expansion of metered on-street parking and “fee optimization to support improved management of on-street parking to reduce congestion for residents and businesses patrons.”

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