Students leading busy lives on weekends don’t intend to end their night with a parking citation. Texas A&M Transportation Services has provided a solution to this potential issue.
Extend-by-Phone is a new service that allows students to extend the amount of time allotted to their pay space by using their cellphones, helping students who pay with a credit card avoid potential parking fines.
Extend-by-Phone is a fairly new industry service, said June Broughton, marketing and communications manager for Transportation Services. We are constantly researching new and better ways to provide service for our customers and visitors.
When paying at a pay-by-space machine at 51 by the Bonfire Memorial or Northside Garage or several other West Campus lots, customers are given the opportunity to provide their cellphone number. This allows customers to receive a text message alert when the expiration time approaches. The customer may then text back and pay for more time. This service, started by Transportation Services last fall, is relatively inexpensive for the department.
It costs our department $10 a month per machine and 25 cents per transaction to provide this service, said Dell Hamilton, manager of facilities access and maintenance for Transportation Services.
There are some limitations to the flexibility of the program. If customers pay with cash at their pay space, they will be unable to extend their time. Customers also must respond to the text alert in a timely manner.
Once a customer receives the text message to extend their time, they have 10 minutes to respond or they will no longer have the option to extend by phone, said Lynn Wiggs, manager of special events for Transportation Services.
Broughton said the flexibility of the service to allow students and customers the option to extend their parking will not result in more severe fines for overdue pay spots. The service does not require an account, but repeat users of the service are able to sign up for an account, which allows them to pay parking fees by phone without using a pay-by-space machine.
Transportation Services also has other programs to help customers with parking related items, such as the Park Me app.
Our new Park Me app gives real-time occupancy, rates, hours of operation and accepted payment types for several visitor parking facilities right on your smartphone or desktop, Broughton said.
These programs provide students with flexibility and help fulfill the mission of Transportation Services.
Transportation Services is dedicated to providing an efficient, dynamic and innovative parking and transit services to the community, Broughton said. This program and other new services provide that innovative service.