New Pay-By-Plate Technology Brings Bustling City to 21st Century Accessibility
The City of Lansing, Michigan has announced its 5-year ‘Extreme Makeover’ plan to the city’s parking services in partnership with Flowbird. In mid-October, the City went live with 80 new solar-powered Strada Pay Stations, replacing older coin-operated meters. The digital upgrade will allow motorists to conveniently pay for parking using a credit card, cash, coin, or via mobile app. In December, an additional 56 Strada Pay Stations will be installed to complete the replacement of single-space meters downtown.
Lansing’s downtown district relies on the vitality and upkeep of its parking system, managed by the city’s Parking Division. The system supports downtown businesses by providing customer parking, merchant validation programs, corporate and residential parking. Keeping this system thriving is important to the city’s overall economic well-being, leading the Parking Division to replace their antiquated parking meters with Flowbird’s technologically advanced and user-friendly Strada pay stations.
The new pay stations feature a large color screen and customized software interface. The kiosks function in pay-by-plate mode, instructing users to input their license plate number and parking duration. Parking enforcement is done wirelessly so there is no need for users to display their receipt on their dashboard. In fact, the City has chosen a green approach, allowing users the choice of getting a receipt or skipping the receipt all together.
Lansing is expecting the pay stations to make parking simpler and lead to more open parking spaces in prime locations. “The upgrade will make it easier for people to shop, work, and live in Lansing,” said Andy Schor, Mayor of Lansing, “as well as encourage business growth through more accessible parking.”
Mayor Schor hopes the new technology will push Lansing into the 21st century, joining surrounding communities who have also upgraded to an elite digital parking system. Along with the upgrade comes enhanced parking operations efficiency. Each Flowbird pay station is managed using Flowbird’s back-office platform, making it easy to monitor hardware, create detailed analysis reports, and adapt to meet current and future conditions.
“We are very happy to see our pay-by-plate solution in Michigan’s capital city,” said Benoit Reliquet, President of Flowbird North America, “We appreciate that the City has put its trust in us and we look forward to helping them improve mobility downtown.”
Flowbird worked in conjunction with their local distribution and service partner, Harvey Electronics, to implement this important project. Based in Wixom, MI, Harvey Electronics has been providing parking solutions throughout the State of Michigan since 1970.
Currently, Flowbird supports over 40,000 parking pay stations for 600 customers throughout the U.S. The Lansing project adds another key city to the company’s State of Michigan portfolio where Flowbird systems can be found in Detroit, East Lansing, and Grand Rapids.
About Flowbird
Flowbird is the world market leader in the field of urban mobility and smart city solutions. By offering a unique, all-encompassing range of parking management and public transport ticketing solutions, Flowbird has a presence in close to 80 countries and is successfully accelerating its growth in emerging markets such as Eastern Europe, Russia, Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Flowbird’s equipment and services are facilitating urban mobility in over 5,000 cities. Flowbird employs a workforce of c.1,300 people worldwide and achieved a turnover of 340 million euros in 2018.
