broadway garage.JPG

City Center Parking, the longtime Portland company that manages nearly 200 metro-area lots including the Broadway Garage on Southwest Pine Street and Broadway, is introducing mobile smartphone payments.

(Brent Wojahn/The Oregonian)

City Center Parking is taking a step into the mobile-payments future at its downtown Portland U-park lots.

On Tuesday, the company, acquired by ImPark of Vancouver, B.C., in January, announced that it will allow motorists to use their smartphones to pay for parking starting in September.

No more hassles with pay stations. No need to return to cars to place a paper receipt on the dashboard. Oh, (and this is cool) you'll be able to add time remotely to avoid a ticket.

Using an app developed by San Francisco-based QuickPay, customers will be able to find and pay for parking via iPhone and Android smartphones. Blackberry and Windows Phone users, meanwhile, will be able to use a browser-based app.

The app also features a map displaying parking lots that accept QuickPay payments, rates and spaces that can be reserved with pre-payment. If there's a lot attendant, a driver just needs to flash the confirmation code on their screen.

Don't own a smartphone? The service will also be available via SMS text, said Lisa Vieira, a QuickPay spokeswoman.

In order to use the app, every QuickPay user must create an account with payment and vehicle information. Attendants need only enter your plate number to find out if you're paid up, Vieira said.

"Drivers can receive alerts when their pre-paid time is running out, and add more time remotely without having to go back to their vehicle," she said.

Parking receipts and history are also available online, making expense reporting easier, Vieria said.

The QP QuickPay app running on an iPhone.

“We chose to partner with QuickPay because of the ability of their system to operate in garages with gates as well as surface lots.” said Kobie Brandt, Impark senior vice president.

Beyond private parking facilities, QuickPay apparently has its eye on bringing mobile payments to public street parking in cities across America.

Last year, QuickPay chief executive Barney Pell told Wired that commuters could simply pay with their smartphones by scanning a QR code on a parking meter. Enforcement officers would need only check the license plate to see if a ticket needs to be issued.

Other software companies, including Portland-based GlobeSherpa, which has developed TriMet's mobile ticketing app, are rumored to be developing similar apps for municipalities.

City Center manages about 33,000 parking spaces in Oregon, most of them in downtown Portland, many of them U-park self-serve lots. The rest primarily are in the Rose Quarter, Lloyd District and Salem.

QuickPay service will initially be available in five City Center Parking facilities in downtown Portland this summer. If it's successful, it will expand to the company's other lots and garages by the end of the year, Vieria said.

The five pilot locations include:

Southwest Fifth Avenue and Market Street.

Northwest 13th Avenue and Glisan Street.

Southwest Third Avenue and Harrison Street.

Southwest Fourth Avenue and Harrison Street.

Southwest 12th Avenue and Washington Street.

-- Joseph Rose