The Official Opposition calls for modernization of the P$ Mobile Service application
Aref Salem, Leader of the Official Opposition at Montréal City Hall, and Effie Giannou, City Councillor for Bordeaux-Cartierville, held a press conference this morning to announce that they want to enforce the user-pay principle within the P$ Mobile Service application. Ensemble Montréal councillors are asking the city to mandate the Agence de mobilité durable (AMD) to modernize its application so it will credit users when they leave a parking space early.
“The current payment method does not allow users to read the parking time remaining at a station, accumulate time, or signal their departure from a parking space. If a user pays on the assumption that he will be there for three hours and ends up leaving after one hour, he loses money. Worse, the person who takes his place must pay over again even if the time is already paid. It doesn’t make sense to pay for a service you don’t use, or to charge people twice,” said Salem.
The Official Opposition suggests offering an option within the P$ Mobile Service application to allow users to notify when they leave their parking space. Overpayments would then be credited back to users through the application for future use. Several cities, such as Calgary, Edmonton and Victoria, offer a “leave” button in their parking application that allows you to stop being charged.
“Technology allows us to accurately charge for usage, so let’s do it. We can simultaneously address the overpayment issue, the double charging issue and the ethical problem surrounding the application,” said Effie Giannou.
Although nearly 80% of on-street parking clients use the P$ Mobile Service application (and this proportion is growing every year), Ensemble Montréal councillors are aware of the digital divide that could result from this. For this reason, the motion to be presented to City Council on June 13 also requests that the AMD explore solutions to ensure that the user-pay principle is available to users of physical pay stations.
