Pay and display machines will be changing to pay by plate. Photo/file
Pay and display machines will be changing to pay by plate. Photo/file
Parking machines in Tauranga and Mount Maunganui are being upgraded to a paperless system.
Tauranga City Council transportation manager Martin Parkes said the banking industry required the council to upgrade the credit card function on all parking machines.
"The upgrade is essential to keep the machines functioning. We're taking theopportunity to future-proof the machines at the same time by making them paperless," Mr Parkes said.
Once upgraded, the machines will no longer issue paper tickets for people to display on their dashboard display.
Customers will instead be asked to enter their licence plate number when paying at the machines. Parking officers can check each vehicle's parking status by its licence plate, a system that is already being used with the PayMyPark app.
Mr Parkes said shifting to the paperless system would save people the hassle of returning to their vehicle to display a ticket.
"You will be able to pay and walk away without going back to the car. You will need to know your licence plate number or have it written down."
Technicians began converting the first machines in Devonport Rd on Saturday and it would take about two weeks to change all of the machines to the pay by plate system.
The total number of parking machines in the city would reduce from 153 to 110.
"People won't have to return to their cars to display tickets, so we can increase the distance between each on-street parking machine,'" Mr Parkes said. "The paperless system will also save the council a lot of maintenance."
E-receipts were available with the new system. Customers could also choose to pay using the PayMyPark app, free to download from the Google Play Store and the App Store.
