New parking meters on their way to Hastings CBD

https://www.hastingsdc.govt.nz/home/article/1546/new-parking-meters-on-their-way-to-hastings-cbd?t=featured&s=1 

New “pay by plate” parking technology is being installed in inner city Hastings from this week, due to be in operation from early February.

Last year the Hastings District Council decided to replace the city’s single-bay lollipop parking meters, which were more than 20 years old and starting to fail, with a new paperless parking system that uses vehicle licence plate numbers to record parking times and payments.

Starting this week the existing lollipop meters are being removed, to be recycled at a scrap metal facility, and replaced with the new machines that will service about 10 car parking spaces each.

The existing pay and display parking machines will also be replaced with the new technology so there is a single system across the city.

Being a paperless system, there will no longer be pay and display tickets – rather the machines are programmed to electronically calculate expiry times based on the licence plate number.

To pay for parking, simply enter the vehicle licence plate number and pay for the amount of time you want to park, within that zone’s parking time limit.

Once paid, vehicles can be moved and parked in a different area within the zone, and the credit still applies if it is within the time limit.

These machines still take coins, but people can also pay by paywave or the parkmate app, and the parking fees as well as the location and number of carparks will remain the same with the changeover. There will, however, be the usual transaction fee for anyone using paywave.

On-screen instructions step users through the payment system, and the Hastings City Assist team and the parking wardens will be on the streets and happy to help people if they have any problems.

For people requiring receipts, eReceipts are available by following the prompts on the machine.

Instructions and answers to frequently asked questions can also be found on the Pay by Plate page.

The pay-by-plate parking system is already used in other centres around New Zealand, who have also upgraded to take advantage of the new, smarter technology.

29 January 2020