The city of Urbana passed a resolution Monday approving a contract agreement with Passport, a pay-by-cell program, for mobile meters. Champaign has implemented use with Passport already and Urbana will pay into a sub-licensing agreement with Champaign for use of the programhttp://www.urbanaillinois.us/sites/default/files/attachments/resolutions-2015-09-053r-054r.pdf.

The mobile meters app allows individuals to pay for parking meters by way of their cell phone. It also gives users a warning when their time is almost up and lets them extend their parking time without having to return to the meter.

Beth Beaty, administrative services manager for Urbana, said the city of Urbana has been looking at a pay-by-cell option for “about a year.” Beaty said money hasn’t been spent on the meters yet.

“It was budgeted in the current year’s budget but it hasn’t been spent, not so far,” Beaty said. “There’s the sublicense agreement that we have with the city of Champaign so there will be a sublicense fee paid annually to them and then there’s just the standard cost involved in regard to credit card transaction fees and processing fees.”

The city of Champaign went live with mobile meter use in April of this year and has since collected $50,000 in revenue at an average $1.80 per transaction with the pay-by-cell service.

Beaty said the goal is to implement the system this fall, but the official launch date will depend on the weather.

“We have to put decals on the meters and decals don’t adhere to the meter in cold weather, really anything under 50 degrees, you can’t also put them on in the rain,” said Beaty. “We’re hopeful that we’ll have good weather.”

At the latest, Beaty says the mobile meter system in Urbana will go live early spring.fm