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Board approves two mobile parking app contracts and sets stage for 35¢ convenience fee; vote contingent on protest resolution
Summary
The SFMTA board approved contracts with Arcadis (Hotspot) and ParkMobile for mobile parking payments and signaled an imminent change to pass a 35¢ per‑transaction convenience fee to app users; approval was conditioned on final resolution of a vendor protest and staff said PayByPhone will be extended if needed to ensure no service gap.
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency Board on Tuesday approved two four‑year contracts (with up to two one‑year extensions) to permit multiple mobile parking payment vendors to operate in the city, and the board signaled it will adopt a 35¢ per‑transaction convenience fee that will be passed to customers.
Rob Malone, senior parking operations manager, said the agency received eight responsive proposals and recommended awarding contracts to Arcadis US Inc. (Hotspot) and ParkMobile LLC to establish a two‑vendor environment. The contracts each include an amount not to exceed $8,370,000 and a transition period to avoid interruption of payment services.
Staff said shifting to multiple vendors encourages competition, creates redundancy in the event of outages and supports continued growth in mobile payments (mobile transactions rose from 17% of meter payments before the pandemic to 36% most recently). Malone said the recommended contracts set a vendor transaction fee at 35¢; the agency plans to pass that fee to customers so the service is budget‑neutral to SFMTA. The board was not asked to vote on the convenience fee at this meeting but staff said the fee will be formally proposed on June 3.
During public comment and board discussion members raised the policy tradeoffs of convenience fees and asked about limits, caps and options to reduce repeat fees for the same user. Staff said the contracts allow the agency to set the convenience fee and that future product features (for example wallets) could reduce per‑transaction charges for frequent users.
The awards were approved unanimously but staff disclosed a timely protest from the incumbent vendor, PayByPhone; the board’s approval was conditional on ‘‘final resolution of any timely protest in a manner that does not preclude execution of the contracts.’’ Staff also said they are pursuing a short extension of the incumbent PayByPhone contract to ensure continuity if the protest or transition overlaps the current June 30 expiration date.
Ending: Staff will bring the formal transportation‑code change to set the convenience fee to the June 3 meeting and will continue transition planning and communications to customers about the new vendor environment.
