Paying parking tickets in New York City might soon be a lot easier, as the city is looking into letting people to take care of these tickets with their smartphones.
The city's Department of Finance has issued a request for information (RFI) in order to provide mobile payments systems like Apple Pay, Bitcoin and PayPal as options for paying these tickets, according to PC Magazine. Obtaining details on "hearing scheduling for parking tickets" is another priority.
While it is possible to pay parking tickets online, via email and in person, a PC is required to pay them online, and it can also take days for the city to add "windshield tickets" placed on people's cars to the system, which prevents those who got a ticket from immediately looking up information about their fines. People who pay tickets online with a debit or credit card are also charged a 2.49 percent "convenience" fee.
New York issues eight to 10 million parking tickets each year and collects an annual parking ticket revenue of around $600 million, MarketWatch reported. The city says it will be able to cut down on the number of tickets it collects each year by letting people pay them on their phones and other mobile devices.
The goal is to give people with tickets the ability to take pictures of them or scan the ticket's barcodes and access details needed to make payments.
Apple Pay and PayPal are currently accepted at thousands of retail locations, and Bitcoin is available as an online payment option for popular retail sites like Overstock.com and for companies like Microsoft, MarketWatch reported.
The "early stages of investigation" are currently underway for understanding the best way to integrate mobile payments options into New York's system, PC Magazine reported. Its Department of Finance says it knows that it might need to learn a lot about the best practices, and that it is open to "any proposed descriptions for additional payment technologies and processes that would allow payment of parking tickets."
If the city wants to make these new payments options a reality, it has until 5 p.m. ET on Jan. 6 to submit questions about the RFI and must submit the final RFI by 3 p.m. on Jan. 15.
