Beginning March 1, Downtown Pensacola and Premium Parking, a New Orleans, Louisiana based parking management provider, will transition to a new digital parking management platform for Downtown Pensacola’s on-street, public lots, and garage parking operations. As part of this market launch, Premium Parking has established a local office and management team based in Downtown Pensacola. The team will oversee operations in the City of Pensacola, Florida and the Gulf Coast.
Downtown Pensacola will also launch Premium’s mobile payment solutions on its paid parking footprint, offering locals and visitors easy ways to pay by phone—via text or mobile app—using their license plate. Additionally, parkers can continue to use traditional payment methods via local pay machines. As part of the transition, Downtown Pensacola will install new, customer-friendly signage that showcases the new ways to pay.
“Our mission at the Downtown Improvement Board is to promote and enhance Downtown Pensacola as a vibrant cultural and commercial destination for residents, businesses, and visitors,†noted Curt Morse, Executive Director of the DIB. “We look forward to working with Premium Parking to help us achieve this objective by modernizing our existing parking infrastructure with easy, intuitive parking strategies.â€
“We are thrilled to partner with the City of Pensacola and the Downtown Improvement Board to bring more accessibility for locals and visitors to park and discover this great destination’s shops, attractions, restaurants and live music venues,†said Ben Montgomery, Premium Parking President.
In addition, Downtown Pensacola will deploy Premium’s proprietary frictionless “GLIDEparcs†solution at Jefferson Street Garage (53 S Jefferson Street) which will eliminate the need for entry and exit gates. Visitors can park, pay by license plate via TextPay or app, or at a nearby pay machine, before walking away. Premium will work directly with monthly customers to create online accounts and obtain license plates for those parkers as well. With an active parking session, guests are free to exit or re-enter freely, without waiting in line, stopping to secure a ticket, or queuing to exit.
Pay via TextPay
Visitors can quickly pay via text by sending “park†to the mobile shortcode “504504.†Parkers are then prompted to enter their location number, license plate, select a session duration, and enter payment info, before walking away.
Pay via Mobile App
The fastest and easiest way to park regularly is via Premium Parking’s mobile app, available for free download on iPhone (Apple App Store) or Android (Google Play). Parkers can easily save their vehicle information, find locations numbers, pay and extend their parking sessions.
Pay at the Machine (cash, coin or credit card)
Traditional pay machines and on-street coin meters are still accessible as payment methods where available. When parkers pay at a machine, they will continue to display the ticket receipt on their dash before walking away.
Parkers at coin meters can also pay via TextPay or Premium’s mobile app. Parking enforcement officials will be notified of a parker’s payment and can confirm an active session via license plate.