Alexandria Living Magazine A Pango parking meter kiosk in the Carlyle neighborhood.

Alexandria will be switching from the Pango mobile parking system to Parkmobile when the City’s contract with Pango ends later this year.

ParkMobile, the mobile parking system used in Washington, DC and Arlington, works similarly to Pango — it allows users to pay for parking through a mobile device by entering a license plate and parking zone information.

The Parkmobile app can store a user’s credit or debit cards for payment and charges a small convenience fee. Users pay up front for a set amount of parking (30 minutes, for example) and can add time as needed from their mobile device up to the maximum time allowed.

The City of Alexandria adopted Pango in December 2013 and was the first city in Virginia to roll out Pango’s system. Pango allows drivers to pay for parking through their mobile device and only pay for the parking they use (plus a convenience fee) by ending their parking session at any time. Users can pay with a credit card or through a pre-paid Pango account.

Pango started in Israel as a division of Mobile Smart Cities Corp., and the company has offices in Miami, New Jersey and Louisiana.

Both systems provide mobile text or email alerts when time is running short.

Parkmobile boasts more than 1 million parking spots in 3,000 locations, including stadiums, cities, shopping centers and more. Parkmobile, LLC is based in Atlanta.