Campus & community, Campus news

Campus launches mobile pay-for-parking service

By Public Affairs

UC Berkeley Parking and Transportation today launched a mobile parking-payment option, PayByPhone. It allows people using one of the campus’s 5,000 parking spaces for hourly parking to pay using a credit or debit card via PayByPhone’s mobile app, by going online or by dialing a toll-free phone number.

Text message reminders will alert parkers when their time is about to expire. The service also allows remote time extensions and provides online receipts.

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A Parking and Transportation press release called the system “part of UC Berkeley’s continued efforts to improve customer service to parking patrons.”

To encourage campus parkers to try PayByPhone, the 25-cent convenience fee is being waived during the first five days of service, from today (Wednesday, Oct. 1) through Sunday, Oct.  5. New users will pay the regular parking rate but won’t be charged the convenience fee that’s typically added to PayByPhone transactions to cover expenses, such as credit card processing fees and text-message reminders.

“Drivers in the City of San Francisco are already taking advantage of PayByPhone’s services, and we‘re excited to bring the same convenient payment options to our campus,” said Seamus Wilmot, UC Berkeley’s director of Parking and Transportation. “The campus community and its visitors can pay for parking as they walk to their event without having to search for bills or change. We think the campus will appreciate text-message reminders, remote time extensions, online receipts and the convenience of not having to walk to the machine to pay or add time.”

“With the Bay Area being the global center of technology innovation, it’s great to see the rapid consumer adoption of our advanced payment services via our PayByPhone mobile application,” said Kush Parikh, president of PayPoint North America. “We’re thrilled to offer the convenience of mobile parking payments to the UC Berkeley community.”

Apple, Android and BlackBerry users can download the free PayByPhone mobile app and sign up for an account by visiting m.paybyphone.com on their mobile devices. Drivers without these devices can use PayByPhone by entering m.paybyphone.com into their web browser or by calling (866) 234-7275.