Covington's parking meters 'save the change'

ABM Parking Services, the national facility management company that manages the parking meters in Covington, recently adopted the Park-by-Phone program to make parking more convenient for customers.
 
Park-by-Phone eliminates the need for coins and cash to pay for parking. Users can extend their parking sessions by calling the Park-by-Phone telephone number or by downloading a mobile app for Android or iPhone. Parking history and receipts are available online, and users can even pay with a mobile phone at any parking meter that offers PassportParking.
 
Credit card machines are expensive to purchase and use, and every time the public charges on a credit card machine, the company that rents out the meter gets charged.
 
The City of Cincinnati has invested in credit card machines, but Covington looked for a different answer. And they found it with Park-by-Phone, which charges an annual fee of $5.95, regardless of the number of uses. The fee is less than getting a parking ticket, and the city pays 100 percent of the total parking fees with the company that rents out the meter charging an additional convenience fee of 10 percent to the customer on top of the annual fee.
 
But Park-by-Phone isn’t for the average Covington resident or occasional visitor—it’s geared toward companies that utilize the city’s parking meters, says Natalie Bowers, marketing and communications director for the City of Covington's Department of Development. 

For example, companies that make deliveries around Covington can give each employee an account and receive itemized monthly statements to keep track of parking expenses. That way, businesses can expense parking costs rather than pay for parking tickets.
 
By Caitlin Koenig
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