If you’ve parked a car in Vancouver, you’ve heard of PayByPhone.
50% of Metro Vancouver households are taking advantage of the PayByPhone app’s smart features including the ability to pay for parking remotely, receive parking reminders and extend a parking session at any time.
Finding a good parking spot is difficult enough without worrying about your time running out.
According to case study by cloud communications platform Twilio, PayByPhone sends 2+ million time-sensitive text messages per month to notify customers about expiring parking meters & avoid fines.
PayByPhone uses Twilio SMS to send one-way notifications to motorists 5 minutes before their parking time expires, allowing them to add time without returning to their vehicle, and therefore avoid parking tickets.
The mobile payments system determines if a transaction requires a reminder, calls the Twilio API, and sends an SMS alert to the user. The user can easily add minutes and increase time, straight from their phone, to deflect a parking ticket.
“Twilio delivers a very reliable SMS pipeline that ensures we get alerts out to users,” said Chris Morrow, head of infrastructure and IT operations at PayByPhone.
“PayByPhone users love the text message reminders, which cut down on annoying parking fines and make it easy for people to add more time from anywhere without having to rush back to the meter.”
But PayByPhone isn’t just a Vancouver phenomena. Their mobile payment solutions serve over 20 million registered users, across 8 countries.
This reach is likely what caught the attention of Volkswagen, who’s financial services division acquired the locally-headquartered company in 2016.
PayByPhone was founded in Vancouver by three local tech enthusiasts in 2000. Together, the team launched North America’s first mobile payment service.
In 2006, the City of Vancouver decided to take a chance by signing on with the local tech company.
And PayByPhone won’t be leaving Vancouver streets any time soon. They were awarded a new contract to remain the smart parking service of choice for 10 years in Vancouver residents.
