Member Article

Cashless Parking in Newcastle up 40% in six months

Cashless parking in Newcastle upon Tyne has increased by 40% in the last six months. PayByPhone, the global leader in mobile parking payments, now provides cashless parking without a transaction fee at the nearly 7,000 on- and off-street spaces across the city centre of Newcastle, one of the first cities in the UK to partner with PayByPhone in 2010.

Craig Mordue, Service Manager, Parking Services for Newcastle City Council, said: “Cashless is becoming an increasingly popular way to pay for parking in Newcastle. We have seen a huge increase in those choosing to pay for parking via their mobile device. In the last 12 months, 1.5 million transactions in Newcastle have been cashless. Our main reason behind partnering with PayByPhone is to offer residents, workers and visitors to Newcastle city centre a hassle-free way to park. Whether people are in a meeting, out for dinner or doing some shopping, they don’t have to rush back to the meter or carry cash. They can simply extend the parking session via their phone or smart watch. It is the ultimate convenience.”

PayByPhone users can choose to receive text message reminders before a parking session expires. The app allows customers to extend their parking sessions remotely, in accordance with the car parks’ terms and conditions, with the Extend-From-Anywhere feature. This feature is now also available to users with an Apple Watch using watchOS 4, allowing parking sessions to be extended directly from the watch.

In addition to the cashless payment and Extend-From-Anywhere benefits, PayByPhone users can now also use the recently launched Maps and the Nearby Parking features. The Maps feature allows drivers to locate parking before they leave for their destination and pin their vehicle location onto the map once they have parked. The Nearby Parking feature instantly provides drivers with the closest PayByPhone parking location number once parked.

Hannah Fuller, Client Director for PayByPhone UK, says: “It’s really positive to see such a high uptake in cashless parking in Newcastle, one of the early adopters of PayByPhone. Not only have drivers realised how much easier and more convenient cashless parking is for them, but also it’s beneficial to Newcastle City Council because it greatly reduces vandalism and the cost of maintaining the pay-and-display machines.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by PayByPhone .