Just over a week ago, the City of Boston and TicketZen announced that their three-month pilot together was fruitful enough for them to extend it another year. And TicketZen announced another partnership.
TicketZen will be teaming teaming up with PayByPhone. Through the partnership, users will be able to conveniently pay for their parking with the latter and, in the unfortunate event they receive a parking ticket, and settle it with the former.
Both apps are mobile payment platforms though PayByPhone is used to pay for spaces at MBTA stations. Similarly, TicketZen lets users pay for a parking ticket by scanning the code printed on the bottom.
“Partnering with PayByPhone allows TicketZen to scale its mobile parking ticket solution to PayByPhone’s rapidly growing customer base,” said Ryan Neu, TicketZen co-founder. “Both companies have adopted a mobile-first approach to simplify the parking experience for consumers and we are excited to bring this technology to cities and citizens worldwide.”
By combining forces, TicketZen is afforded an open avenue into the already established, and numerable, PayByPhone markets. The company has more than 9 million users worldwide.
More specifically, TicketZen is setting its sights on San Francisco, Miami, Seattle, Dallas and Fort Lauderdale in the U.S. and Vancouver and Ottawa in Canada. San Francisco alone issues an average 1.5 million parking tickets annually. Locally, TicketZen has been implemented with Boston, Cambridge and has made a case for Somerville, as well.
The most common reasons for receiving a parking ticket are expired meters, parking in a resident-only space and not moving during designated street cleaning times.
Though users will still have to activate each app to perform their respective functions, the entire process is made easier by offering them both as a mobile app.
During its pilot with the City of Boston, TicketZen helped facilitate roughly $250,000 in revenue through the use of its app. Some 4,500 people paid approximately 7,000 tickets between September and December.
In general, 52 percent of TicketZen users paid more than one ticket using the app. About 50 percent scanned their ticket within three days, drastically reducing the likelihood of incurring late fees.
