Innovative Pay-By-Cell Phone Option Quietly Dies

ParkMagic's in-car parking meter

Just over four years after Chicago’s Department of Revenue announced its ground breaking pay-by-phone,  in-car parking meter program to great fanfare, glowing reviews and overwhelming positive user response, the plug was finally pulled on the ParkMagic Chicago pilot program just over two weeks ago.

An e-mail from ParkMagic to its remaining users from the pilot program went out July 8th saying in part, “As you know the ParkMagic Pay by Cell parking system has been in pilot phase with the City of Chicago over the past two years and this phase is now complete.”

It was back in June of 2007, when the DOR debuted the blue and silver in-car meters in a pilot program limited to 1000 initial users. The first units were snapped up in less than a week, and after the first year the program was considered a success by an independent research study showing  a 97.6% positive feedback from the initial 1000 users.

ParkMagic was essentially the parking meter equivalent of the Tollway’s I-Pass unit.