During this unprecedented time in our industry, thinking about new projects or spending additional capital may not be at the top of everyone’s to-do list. We must think about how best to serve current patrons, and at some point, in the (hopefully near) future, assist the parking public in coming back to work, school, shopping, etc.
With parking demand at historical lows, and everyone’s mind on disinfecting surfaces that people touch, removing the “touch” in credit card payment processing of parking transactions may help to ease the public’s mind and increase customer satisfaction.
Many payment card processing companies’ solutions include “contactless” credit card readers. These readers use Near Field Communications (NFC) to read Dual Interface Credit Cards with the “wireless” symbol, as shown to the right. These contactless receivers can also read any mobile device with NFC enabled and a credit card payment mobile app, such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. This technology removes the requirement of touching the payment card reader, keying a PIN code, or other required contact. Taking this one step further, these readers can be installed at the entry point to the parking facility allowing for contactless entry as well. No more “Press button for ticket” here, folks!
If you are interested in this technology, contact your local vendor or Walker to see what is required to upgrade your Parking Access and Revenue Control Systems (PARCS) and provide contactless payments. Your customers will be pleasantly surprised that you’ve upgraded your system and are prepared for the future. Upgrading your payment handling technology may also provide a side benefit of simplifying PCI Compliance, as many newer payment solutions are PCI-P2PE certified to provide strong end-to-end encryption of the payment card data.
Read the next post in this series, about contactless entry and exit >>