Paperless parking meters coming your way

All 259 Pay and Display parking meters around the city will be upgraded as the Council moves to a paperless system that will save the production of more than 1.5 million tickets a year.

The upgrade, which moves from pay and display to an electronic ‘pay by vehicle plate’ system, is needed to meet international security standards set by credit card companies.

Council Transport Operations Manager Aaron Haymes says the parking meter upgrade will take 4-6 weeks.

Christchurch City Council Transport Operations Manager Aaron Haymes said while the physical parking meters would remain the same, the technology used inside them would be updated.

Customers would now enter their licence plate number when paying and would no longer receive a paper ticket.

“The main change for people parking is that they will need to enter their licence plate number into the machine when paying but will no longer need to return to their vehicles to place a paper ticket on their dashboards.

“Customers will be able to pay by credit card including the contactless method and will still be able to pay with coins and use the text-to-park option.

“These machines were installed in 2006 and technology has advanced significantly since then, so we need to ensure we keep the system as secure as possible.”

The cost of the upgrade was around $900,000 but moving to pay by plate would result in annual operational cost savings of around $50,000. The upgrade costs would be funded from existing Council budgets.

Mr Haymes said the upgrade required replacement of the terminal componentry including the front panel but the main structural casings would be reused. Currently there are 228 parking machines installed servicing 2,292 pay and display spaces and another 31 machines in stock.

“This upgrade is going to make our parking machines more secure in terms of electronic payment, and better for the environment as we’ll no longer be printing 1.5 million paper tickets each year. That is a saving of 800 kilograms of paper each year,” Mr Haymes said.

The machine upgrade is expected to be commence in around three months and is expected to take 4 – 6 weeks.

My Haymes said the role of Parking Wardens would remain the same but instead of checking paper tickets on dashboards they would check the licence plates of parked vehicles against those that customers have entered into the machines.

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