NYC Begins Rolling Out New ‘Pay by Plate’ Parking Meters

New York City began rolling out its first new “Pay-by-Plate” parking meters on Wednesday, spelling the beginning of the end for paper receipts.

The retrofitted meters will have a display that includes payment information and the entry of the license plate number, eliminating the need for a paper receipt. City parking meters currently issue approximately 2,500 miles of paper receipts annually.

The new meters will have multiple language options and the opportunity for contactless credit-card payments. The meters will also eliminate the (illegal) practice of drivers using the paper tickets to transfer parking time to a different zone or vehicle.

The process aligns with the payment system already available via the ParkNYC app. As with the app, transactions from the meters are synced with the NYPD parking enforcement systems so that traffic agents can use handheld enforcement devices to easily identify which drivers have paid.

The first new meters were unveiled Wednesday at West 166th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue in Washington Heights. The rollout begins in Upper Manhattan, then will advance southward and continue throughout this year and into next year into the other four boroughs, eventually covering all 80,000 metered parking spaces in the Big Apple.

“Pay-by-Plate meters will help us say goodbye to paper receipts on dashboards and say hello to simpler, more efficient parking for busy New Yorkers on the go,” said Transportation Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez. “This new technology will not only improve the user experience, but each year it will reduce maintenance costs and save enough paper to stretch from New York City to Los Angeles.”