Motorist Parking Payment Options with Strada Pay Station
Offering a variety of payment options makes parking easier for your city's motorists. Going beyond coins, the convenience of being able to pay using bills, credit card, smart card, or cell phone means that the amount of time people purchase is no longer limited by how much change they have in their pockets.
In many cases, people purchase more time than planned because it is now easy to purchase a "cushion." More time bought, combined with more compliance, can increase parking revenue by up to 40%.
Coins & Tokens
Parkeon Strada pay station accepts 14 different types of coins and tokens and can be programmed to accept newer coins.
The coin inlet is protected from moisture, is jam resistant, and will only open for metallic objects (it does not open for wood, plastic or paper). Optical and magnetic detectors determine if a coin is valid or not, and a coin selector channels any foreign objects to the coin return. The coinbox can hold up to 3200 quarters. A built-in coin escrow allows motorists to retrieve their coins if they decide to cancel their transaction.
Bills
Parkeon Strada pay station accept bills in all denominations and can be programmed to accept new forms of currency (e.g. the newer bills with the larger presidential portraits).
The bill acceptor validates in all directions, face up or face down in both directions (a "4-way read".)
Credit Cards
On-line, real-time credit card authorization helps protect you from losing revenue via stolen or unauthorized card usage that would otherwise be undetected by batch processors until it was too late. On-line authorization also eliminates the need to maintain motorists' credit card numbers after the transaction concludes, nor do you need to download and maintain "blacklists" of known bad card numbers anymore.
Statistics from existing customers show that the average payment when using a credit card is almost double that when using coins.
And credit card use also lessens the need for cash collection.
Parkeon has earned level 1 PCI certification. Level 1 PCI certification is the highest rank available from the major credit card providers (VISA, MasterCard, AMEX) and is only given to those third-party providers who handle thousands of credit card transactions monthly and who meet their stringent – and audited – credit card transaction security protocols to protect your customers' personal transaction data. Level 1 requires an external audit for approval, which is more rigorous than the self-audit done to earn lower level compliance. Each year, Parkeon undergoes a new audit to ensure ongoing compliance and maintain our certification.
The Strada pay station can be easily upgraded to accept contactless credit card payments to go along with standard contact credit card payments.
Smart cards
We have deployed more on-street parking smart cards than any other company. Long time Parkeon clients such as New York, NY and Park City, UT use smart card programs implemented by Parkeon. We welcome the opportunity to help you implement a smart card program in your town.
Our card readers comply with the ISO 7816-1,2,3 standard concerning the physical characteristics, localization of contacts, electrical characteristics, and communication protocol. The readers accept both Synchrone chip cards (type SLE 4404, Euro chip, memory cards, etc.) and Asynchrone cards (electronic purses, microprocessor cards, etc.), and can be adapted to work with your city's transit system. Creation of both disposable and reloadable cards is available. We can also upgrade the Strada pay station to accept ISO 14443 compliant contactless card readers to give your users an additional payment option.
Cell Phone
Parkeon's system can integrate with whichever mobile phone payment provider you choose. The Parkeon and cell phone payment databases will interact to ensure your parking rules are enforced and to provide you with the detailed transaction data you need to run your city.
Rest assured, parking enforcement officers need only to access one database (Parkeon's) to know the payment status of the vehicles in their zones.
With cell phone payment enabled, motorists can also extend their stay from any place in the city (but only if your parking policies will allow extensions!). Drivers also get the added benefit of receiving a text message to alert them when their parking time is about to expire and asking them if they would like to extend their time.
