Sept 2006
Phone Payment Takes Off Nationwide With Verrus UK

Verrus UK Ltd continues to extend its market dominance of the UK mobile phone payment market with the introduction of further schemes around the country.

Verrus already operates systems for City of York Council, Salisbury DC, APCOA and NCP and has now added Cheltenham BC, Birmingham City Council and City of Lincoln to its growing portfolio. Westminster City Councl is due to commence a trial of the Verrus system in early October.

Cheltenham BC introduced the Verrus system in June across all of its off street car parks with the full support of the Local Chamber of Commerce and Town Centre Manager. The introduction of cashless payment is seen by the local retailing community as an added boost in trying to attract shoppers to the town centre.

Cllr Rob Garnham, cabinet deputy of environment, agreed it was a fantastic new scheme. He said : “This council is not in the business of trying to catch people out over parking and then issuing tickets. What we want to do is encourage responsible, safe and convenient parking for anyone using the town centre. This new system increases that convenience, stops the eternal hunt for spare change we all seem to go through and, most of all, allows us to relax and continue whatever we are doing without breaking off and rushing back to pay for more parking.

“Now you can browse in the shops and restaurants, continue with your meeting or have even more time relaxing in the parks and gardens but still be able to top up your parking from wherever you are. I think this system will be a real winner.”

Commenting on the introduction,Jason Benjamin, parking manager for Cheltenham Borough Council, said: “We have seen the payment system in operation in other areas of the country and we were very impressed with the take up from car park users. The payment system is provided at no additional costs to the council and is customer friendly as car park users can choose between traditional coin payments or payment using their credit/debit card through a mobile phone call or text transaction. We believe our customers will welcome the choice which we hope will significantly reduce our cash collection and capital expenditure costs in the long run.”

The Birmingham scheme covers 7,400 on and off street spaces and is the first on street mobile phone payment scheme to go live in England. Operating on all of Birmingham’s City Centre Pay and Display car parks and on its business district Inner Zone on-street spaces, the scheme may be extended to the rest of the city’s on and off-street spaces if the one year trial proves successful.

Councillor Len Gregory, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Transportation and Street Services said “The Council is investing heavily in improvements to our car parks. This scheme has also enabled us to offer improvements to our on-street service by offering customers some of the flexibility only previously available at car parks.”

NCP is also bringing mobile phone payment to rail car parks, with the rollout of the Verrus system at all of the car parks operated on behalf of ARRIVA Trains Wales. It has also been introduced at NCP’s Network Rail site at Manchester Victoria and York. Trials are also underway at car parks NCP operates for other rail clients.

Richard Talbot, NCP’s general manager for rail said “Mobile phone payment for rail parking is an obvious application. The uptake at Cardiff station where Verrus has been in place for a year has been fantastic – around 20% of users now use the system rather than the machines. Users find it simple and convenient to use and of course, they tend to be regulars so they just use it all the time. Mobile phone payment looks like being our cashless solution at rail station car parks and is a realistic and cost effective alternative to introducing credit card reading on pay and display machines.”

Verrus has also recently upgraded its service with the introduction of a text service for users. Motorists now have the option of either using the automated voice system or sending a text message to the number signed in the car park.

“We think even those people who are not that used to texting will find this system simple to use. For those motorists who think nothing of communicating by text, this really will be a big hit and it is the simplest and fastest way to use the system. The service really comes into its own for regular users of the same car park. They simply need to text the number of hours they wish to park for such as “3” for example so you can’t get much simpler than that. ” commented Robin Bevan, CEO for Verrus UK Ltd.

Bevan is delighted at the continuing success of the company “Without doubt, mobile phone payment has come of age in 2006 in the UK and Verrus has certainly played its full part in gaining acceptance for this concept. Mobile phone payment is now seen as a viable alternative form of payment to pay and display and a very cost effective way for councils and operators to introduce credit reading without costly machine upgrades. I am confident that other councils will soon adopt the system now they know how easy it is to implement and how convenient it is for the motorist. “said Bevan.