Thousands of parking meters on Oʻahu have been upgraded to accept coin, credit card and phone app payments, city officials announced on Wednesday.
The Honolulu Department of Transportation Services said about 2,100 modernized, 4G-enabled meters have been installed on city parking stalls.
DTS Director Roger Morton said upgraded meters represent about half of the total that will get outfitted. A total of 4,200 parking meters will be upgraded.
“We’re converting the last 2,100 meters that we have to be fully digital so that all of our meters on-street and in our off-street lots will be converted by end of year so that they will also be capable of taking credit cards,” Morton said at a Wednesday news conference.
The upgraded parking meters are located in Chinatown, downtown Honolulu and Waikīkī.
Morton said they are more functional and convenient for users than older digital parking meters and coin-only meters.
“We’re adding additional functionality so that users can also use their smartphones. They can use Google Pay or Apple Pay to pay for their parking. And that's another, you know, convenience factor for that,” he said.
In January digital parking meters with 2G and 3G technology went offline after a Verizon shutdown. That resulted in about six months of free parking at those stalls.
Morton said the city lost about $1.7 million in revenue over that time.
In addition to Apple Pay and Google Pay, the new meters can also accept payments through the Park Smarter phone app.
The new parking meters have QR codes on their screens that open up the Park Smarter app or prompt users to download it. The older digital meters have stickers with QR codes.
The city earlier this year had to remove some stickers that were placed on older meters because they had QR codes that led to a fraudulent website.
The installation of the new parking meters is part of a $3.5 million contract with IPS Group, Morton said.
