New PayStay app to launch alongside CellOPark
William Davis
A new parking app will launch in Brisbane next week and PayStay will work alongside the existing CellOPark system from March 17.
“We believe more choice for residents is always a good thing,” said Ryan Murphy, head of infrastructure at Brisbane City Council.
The free app requires users to sign up with an email address and upload banking information to pay for parking.
Street signs explaining the new payment option will be installed starting next week.
Mayor Adrian Schrinner’s office said the rollout of a second app would reduce reliance on physical parking meters, which cost about $1.7 million each year to maintain.
A spokesman said there were no plans to remove the existing meters.
The council introduced the app payment option in 2009 and it now accounts for more than half of all car parking transactions.
More than a quarter of paid car parking spaces in the city (about 2,600 out of 8,350) are digital only.
PayStay is used at Griffith University and by councils across the country, including the City of Sydney.
Councilor Danita Parry previously confirmed the company had won the contract through competitive tendering.
Last year the Labor opposition criticized a new enforcement plan, but this week they focused on increasing revenue from parking fines.
“The announcement of a new parking app provider is good, but the real conversation should be about where over $32 million in parking tickets is going,” leader Jared Cassidy said.
“Two weeks ago we saw that the money we raise was going to fuel an increasingly expensive parking enforcement regime rather than building the infrastructure and delivering the services our growing city needs.”
The CellOPark app caused confusion in December 2024 when Brisbane drivers received conflicting emails about the planned switch to a new app called OPark.
In the first email, users were told that their CellOPark accounts would be transferred to the new application.
Twenty-four hours later another email claimed that the first had been sent “by the local representative in breach of its obligations” and that there was no connection between the two brands.
Last year, this article revealed that artificial intelligence was increasingly used to issue parking tickets.
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