“No More Reciepts”: NYC DOT Unveils Upgraded Parking Meters

NEW YORK — The NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) unveiled upgraded parking meters that will roll out citywide in the near future. The meters’ new Pay-by-Plate technology is paperless and will allow users to enter their license plate number instead of displaying a receipt on their vehicle’s dashboard.

According to the DOT, the city’s parking meters print roughly 2,500 miles worth of receipts – enough to stretch from New York City to Los Angeles. New Yorkers will be able to pay the meter at a kiosk or use the ParkNYC app. The upgraded meters will also help provide more short-term parking by improving parking enforcement. The meters will provide real-time data to NYPD traffic enforcement agents to help ensure vehicles don’t overstay the meter.

Starting in early May, parking meters will gradually be upgraded to Pay-by-Plate operation, starting with meters in Northern Manhattan and gradually progressing South. The meter upgrades will continue to the rest of Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.

“Our new pay-by-plate parking meters are simple to use and will make short-term parking easier for everyone,” said NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. “Drivers will no longer need to worry about leaving a paper receipt on their dashboard and can use the convenience of the ParkNYC app to pay the meter while on the go.”

Once fully installed across all 80,000 of the city’s metered parking spaces, drivers will input their license plate number and state into an on-street parking meter and complete the payment. The process aligns with the payment system already in place via the ParkNYC app—the mobile payment application with over 1.8 million users. As with the app, transactions from the meters are instantaneously synced with the NYPD parking enforcement systems so that traffic agents can use handheld enforcement devices to easily identify which drivers have paid.

Pay-by-plate parking makes paying for parking easier than ever, with drivers no longer needing to leave paper receipts on their dashboards. Retrofitted meters will include a modern display visible in all conditions that allows for the display of payment information and the entry of license plate information. Meters will have multiple language options and the opportunity for contactless Tap and Go credit card payments.

The Pay-by-Plate upgrade also helps eliminate the illegal practice of transferring parking time to a different zone or vehicle via paper receipt.