Flowbird rolls out pay station feature for kiosks

Flowbird Group has announced recent developments that limit the amount of physical interaction with its parking kiosks and an alternative to avoid the kiosks altogether.

Flowbird’s latest release is a pay station software called, “recall”, which is now available on the CWT smart parking kiosk. The recall feature makes a ‘token’ from the credit card used the first time a driver makes a transaction at a kiosk. The next time they return and swipe their card, the kiosk will suggest the same license plate number and phone number for text receipts. This limits the amount of physical interaction when entering their license plate number for pay-by-plate transactions, or entering their phone number for time expiration reminders and receipts. The recall function is an optional feature that the City operator can choose to enable on their kiosks.

While credit card use at Flowbird kiosks remains high, and contactless payments rise in popularity, Flowbird reminds and encourages drivers to use ‘tap-to-pay’ methods whenever possible. Several Flowbird clients are in the final phases of launching contactless/NFC payments, including the ability to accept Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, and credit cards with the NFC symbol.  This method of payment eliminates another touchpoint at the kiosk.

For users who are not quite ready to interact with pay stations or meters, Flowbird continues to provide and make advances to its Flowbird mobile payment application. The latest release of the app was recently launched at the end of April, giving drivers the option to search, filter, book and pay for a parking reservation before they even leave their home.  This gives motorists a completely contactless parking experience.

Currently, Flowbird supports over 40,000 parking pay stations for over 600 customers throughout the US. Their mobile apps have been deployed in over 600 municipalities and universities around the world including 100 locations in the United States, with over 1.5 million mobile users globally.