Payments company takes the headache out of parking and charging complexity

31 August, London – Payments technology company Paythru has today launched an innovative solution that combines parking and EV charging into a single transaction, addressing a growing user frustration around dealing with multiple payment methods in car parks.

Many public and private car parking locations require the purchase of a parking ticket as well as initiating and paying for a charging session. Often, the chargers and parking space are operated by different companies, with their own payments system. There are a growing number of stories of aggrieved EV owners receiving fines because they did not realise that they needed both (which recently hit national headlines).

This solution is designed to take the headache out of this process.

Paythru Park and Charge is a highly customisable piece of software that manages payments in the cloud. It can be easily implemented via APIs into car park or charge point operators’ existing payment apps, websites, or terminals.

It allows users’ to see a single parking and charging tariffs at their selected location – and to pay the appropriate fee.

James O’Neill, Paythru’s CEO, commented: “Instead of building yet another app we’ve built a platform in the cloud. This means parking companies and charging companies just sign up, set their payment terms behind the scenes, and the user has one transparent transaction to pay for everything – which could be either through the car park or their EV charging app. Whatever they choose, we manage the payment split and make sure the parking and charging companies both get paid.”

“This is the first application for consumers that recognises the need to park and charge. The EV revolution will stall unless we get the customer experience right and no one’s actually addressing this – until now.

“Having previously spent years working at EV charging providers, I have seen the impact of poor user payment experience on customer loyalty.”

In operation, when a session is started using Paythru’s Park and Charge, the system automatically initiates the EV charge at the connected charge point. It supports both time-based and kWh-based tariffs. This approach makes the consumer experience as simple and easy as possible, and significantly mitigates the risk of penalty charge notices.

O’Neil adds: “Parking and charging is the pressing problem, but we are not limited to that. We can also work with other interested parties – such as high street retailers and those leasing land for EV charging or fleet charging schemes – to integrate multi-party transactions into one simple payment for the EV driver.”

Park and Charge is aimed at public sector charge point operators, parking operators who want to install EV functionality on their offering, and fleet and last mile logistics customers. The solution also supports on and off-street parking options, and it can be connected to parking enforcement companies. It was spun out of a long running project for Flowbird Smart City UK which led to a solution recently highlighted in the 2022 Parkex Innovation Trail. It is now available as a service for all.