Digital Payment Technologies Launches License-Plate-Enabled Parking for North America

LEP provides significant operational, revenue generation and enforcement benefits for municipalities, institutions and parking operators and far greater convenience for parkers. DPT has incorporated LEP-enabling technology into new LUKE and SHELBY pay stations. Operators of existing LUKE and SHELBY pay stations can take advantage of the LEP parking model with field-upgradeable keypads and software updates.

LEP is the cornerstone for a range of innovative new parking applications that will change the way that both parking operators and parkers in North America think about parking, said Alan Menezes, vice president of product management and marketing at DPT. The LEP ecosystem is based on technology partners, and our Digital API open system architecture, which allows DPT clients and partners to build an integrated solution of advanced payment, management and enforcement capabilities. The resulting solutions increase revenue, reduce operational costs and offer new services that will make parking simpler and more convenient for parkers.

With Pay-by-License Plate (PBL), an enabling technology for LEP, parkers enter their license plate number at the pay station when paying for a parking session. They do not need to remember a space number or return to their cars to place a receipt. They simply pay and walk. When combined with additional LEP technologies such as Pay-by-Phone, parkers will be able to access convenient services from a mobile device such as the ability to receive alerts when their parking sessions are about to expire and even add additional time to pay-station-initiated parking sessions remotely. If they should happen to run over time, parkers will be able to pay citations directly at the pay station with operators potentially offering discounts for immediate settlement.

For local governments, institutions and parking operators, LEP has numerous benefits that will ultimately make parking operations more efficient and profitable. With PBL, operators will capture more revenue by eliminating the pass back of unexpired parking permits from one parker to another. In addition, with the license plate as the key identifier, municipalities can do away with marked spaces in on-street applications, gaining additional revenue by accommodating more vehicles within existing curb space while reducing the costs of maintaining parking space lines, numbers and signs.

LEP also provides operators with significant improvements in enforcement. With third-party handheld and vehicle-mounted License-plate Recognition (LPR) technologies, operators can dramatically increase the coverage area of enforcement personnel, both reducing costs and increasing revenue. Coupled with citation management systems which can match scanned license plates to a database of plate numbers with paid parking sessions and automatically generate citations operators can see as much as a 20X improvement in their enforcement operation productivity.

The LEP ecosystem also allows parking operators to offer new premium services such as license-plate enabled valet parking, gateless parking, loyalty programs, and reserved parking based on the license plate. These services can provide additional revenue to operators and provide competitive differentiation.

LEP Ecosystem

Combined with field-upgradeable hardware, the Digital API (formerly Web Services) of DPTs back-end management system provides the foundation for an open system architecture that allows parking operators to integrate third-party parking and data management solutions as well as build custom extensions of their own. This flexibility at both the hardware and software levels allows for superior integration with LEP ecosystem partners offering technologies such as license-plate-enabled pay-by-phone systems, handheld citation enforcement system providers and license-plate recognition systems. DPT has completed LEP-based partner integrations with leading pay-by-phone providers Parkmobile and Verrus, LPR system suppliers Genetec and Tannery Creek Systems, and T2 Systems for citation issuance.

About Digital Payment Technologies

Digital Payment Technologies (DPT) is an innovative leader in the design, manufacture, and distribution of electronic parking meters, management software, and online services for the parking industry. DPT products provide complete financial tracking, control, and reporting on parking revenue collected by cities, municipalities, universities, parking management companies, private operators, and national parks, from customer payment through to bank deposit. In 2007, DPT was named Emerging Company of the Year by the British Columbia Technology Industry Association, and placed on Deloittes Technology Fast 50 and Fast 500 lists for the second year in a row, as one of the fastest growing high technology companies in North America.