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The pandemic has in a few months’ time brought changes to the payments business that otherwise might have taken years—even in mundane environments like parking. One big development emerged Thursday with the announcement that TIBA Parking Systems, which manages access to more than 1.9 million parking spaces in the United States, will allow drivers to enter and exit gated parking garages using mobile-payment technology from Atlanta-based ParkMobile LLC.
ParkMobile, which claims more than 20 million users, says the integration will allow drivers who pull up to hospital, airport, or other parking structures to take a ticket from the entry station to lift the gate. When they leave, they can scan the ticket with the app to pay for their time and lift the gate again. No interaction is necessary with pay stations or cashiers, the two companies say.
“The outcome of this partnership is a comprehensive platform for combined online and drive-up data, smarter yield management, and a better process for supporting our customers and their parking guests,” says Levi Rinkoff, executive vice president of partnerships and alliances at Columbus, Ohio-based TIBA, in a statement. TIBA is a unit of Italy-based FAAC Group, a provider of pedestrian and vehicle control technology.
ParkMobile and TIBA say they are piloting the system in preparation for rolling it out to parking garages nationwide, partly in response to consumers’ need to avoid unnecessary contact with payment devices.
The partnership also enables ParkMobile, which claims to have more users than any other parking app, to make a major move beyond street parking. “We have been getting constant feedback from our users that they want more ways to use our app beyond the on-street parking,” says Jon Ziglar, the company’s chief executive, in a statement. “This new partnership with TIBA takes us into the parking garage, giving our users a new way to conveniently use the app to make contactless payments at gated facilities.”
