Transportation Services is considering a new parking system
which may make getting a parking citation a whole lot harder.
Pay-by-phone parking allows a person to remotely pay for parking
by using their cell phone and credit card.
If implemented, the program will replace metered and
pay-by-space parking in future parking lots, said Renee Fortier,
director of UCLA Transportation Services.
Before using the system, campus visitors or students need to
create accounts and provide a Visa or MasterCard number to which
the charges will be directed.
After creating an account, account holders can pay for their
parking spots by accessing their accounts.
To do this, they can call a toll-free number and then add time
to the space in which they are parked.
Fortier indicated parking rates would not be raised from the
current rate of eight minutes per 25 cents.
Creating an account takes about five minutes and does not cost
anything, but a 25 cent fee is charged each time someone uses the
service.
The Transportation Department is closely watching the UC Santa
Barbara campus, which recently began using a pay-by-phone
system.
The program’s success ““ or lack thereof ““ at
UCSB will help determine whether UCLA will begin using the
system.
Parking spaces that already use meters will not be replaced by a
pay-by-phone system.
Parking meters were created in the 1930s and have become
outdated technology, Fortier said.
“People have moved to a pay-by-cell-phone or pay-by-space
system,” she said.
“It’s much more efficient,” she added.
Fortier said some people find carrying around large amounts of
quarters cumbersome and may not have enough money on hand to pay
for the time they need.
One student said he often worried when he parked at a metered
space about getting ticketed.
“A lot of times, I’m worried my meter’s about
to expire, especially toward the end of class,” said Jorge
Pena, a third-year sociology student.
Pena said he liked the idea of the program but believed a trial
area should precede any large-scale use of the system.
Metered spots make up only 345 of the school’s over 22,000
parking spaces, but expired meters generate more tickets than any
other type of parking violation.
Pay-by-space, the other form of pay-per-use parking currently
used at UCLA, generates fewer tickets than metered parking, Fortier
said.
Pay-by-phone parking would eliminate the problem of needing to
have quarters, or any other type of cash, on hand because charges
are billed to the user’s account.
Another problem faced by people who use pay-by-space or metered
parking is the loss of money for unused time.
Someone who pays for an hour but stays only 10 minutes has no
way of obtaining a refund for the extra time.
Some respond by trying to estimate the exact amount of time they
will be on campus, but any error in their estimate is costly.
Parking at an expired meter is a $38 violation, which doubles if
not paid within three weeks of being issued.
The pay-by-phone system has the potential to reduce, if not
eliminate, the problem of underestimating the amount of time a
student will park.
It will text message account holders’ cell phones five
minutes before their time expires.
Account holders can then call a toll-free phone number and add
time to their space.
Taline Khansa, a third-year aerospace engineering student, said
she thought the program was a good idea, as long as parking fees
are not increased.
Khansa said the program would allow her to worry less about
being near the parking lot when her parking time was close to
expiring.
“It facilitates things for students,” Khansa said.
“You’re less restricted to where you are on
campus.”