Press Release 3rd February 2006
Salisbury DC goes Mobile with Verrus

Salisbury DC is the latest council to adopt the Verrus mobile phone payment system. Launched on February 1st 2006 across the majority of Salisbury’s off-street car parks, the council has introduced phone payment as a means of introducing credit card payment across all their car parks and to provide their customers with a highly convenient payment option.

"We wanted to improve customer service in our car parks and we know that motorists find paying for parking using coins very inconvenient.” Commented Pat Higgins, Car Parks Manager for Salisbury. “Motorists can already pay by credit card at the pay and display machines in our high tariff Market Square car park. This has proved popular, particularly with tourists. After looking at all the options we concluded that mobile phone payment was the most effective means of introducing credit card payment – and one that provides the motorist with a number of other valuable benefits. The top up feature, which allows motorists to extend their parking time remotely, and the text reminders will be a great benefit to those parking in Salisbury including tourists who often find it difficult to judge how long they want to park for."

Enforcement is carried out on Blackberry handheld units. Attendants simply log onto the Verrus website and query a database by keying in the four digit location number shown on car park signage. The license plate and expiry time of all cars parked through the Verrus system is displayed on the handheld unit.

Salisbury has adopted a new character, "Parker" to promote the service and its benefits. The character appears on signage and promotional literature as well as on the council’s web site. “It adds a bit of humour and light heartedness to some thing that people don’t always relish doing – paying to park! We hope the convenience of phone payment will make it that bit more pleasant." added Higgins.

"We are delighted to have launched our services in Salisbury”, said Robin Bevan, CEO of Verrus. “Based on the uptake that we have seen in York and elsewhere, we fully expect around 1 in 10 transactions to take place through our system within a year – and to continue to build at that rate for some time thereafter."

Verrus has recently launched its mobile phone payment system across the City of York’s off-street car parks and will shortly be announcing the launch of its services in Central London. The Verrus service is also live in Southampton with Apcoa Parking, and in Cardiff with NCP.