A local tech business that was helping drivers find cheap parking has been sent a cease-and-desist letter from the vendor now handling mobile parking payments for the City of Edmonton.
Zipstall made finding the best deal on parking easy, putting most spots — public and private — on one mobile app.
“For me, I thought Edmontonians deserved a tool that showed them all the options like Expedia,” said Zipstall founder Kevin Petterson.
The app launched four years ago during the pandemic. It shows which parking stalls are available, how much they cost, and allows drivers to end their parking session early.
“Zipstall is essentially my way of solving parking for Edmontonians because I feel like the industry has been taking advantage of parkers for decades,” he said.
“We don’t make you guess how long you’re going to be parked. We want to be able to pay for the time you actually use.”
Zipstall’s founder said his company works with a few other private parking companies in Edmonton like Impark and Diamond, and under the city’s previous Epark system, said they were also working with the city — at no cost to the municipality.
“When EPark was here, we had an integration with them where we were able to charge people for parking and register their plates to prevent them from getting a parking ticket,” he said.
But now things have changed.
Earlier this year, HotSpot — a product of international tech design firm Arcadis that’s used in 150 cities — took over as the vendor for mobile payments at city-managed parking on streets and in some downtown parkades, replacing the MyEPark app. The on-street parking meters didn’t change.
“If you look at Hotspot, the RFP that they won outlines they’re getting paid $2.52 million of taxpayer money to administer these parking services,” Petterson said.
Now, the private corporation appears to be cracking down on perceived local competition.
The City of Edmonton said Zipstall is violating the HotSpot terms of service, explaining the HotSpot app cannot be used for commercial purposes — which is what Zipstall was doing.
In a statement, the city said it became aware Zipstall was purchasing HotSpot parking on behalf of users and charging them additional fees for the service.
As a result, HotSpot sent a cease-and-desist letter directly to Zipstall on Oct. 15 and terminated Zipstall’s account on its platform.
“It’s a slap in the face,” Petterson said. “We do you no harm. We’re helping Edmontonians with a better experience.”
Zipstall’s founder said he’s trying to bring transparency to the marketplace.
“There’s no real value to this other than HotSpot being protectionist (over) their relationship with the customer. And in my opinion, if they delivered a better experience, they would deserve that relationship with the customer.”
It’s a frustrating setback for Petterson.
“We think Edmontonians deserve to have one tool instead of 11 different parking apps to pay through so they can give their credit card to one, make it nice and clean, and compare all the options — whereas the parking industry seems to like have it all siloed,” Petterson said.
“Nobody wants 11 parking apps on their phone — it’s ridiculous.”
Petterson said he’s trying to fight for Edmonton drivers but it’s not an easy task.
“We’re trying to deliver a better user experience, but there’s no way for us to go after Hotspot or the City of Edmonton. So we continue to plead with them and try and help expand our platform.”
The city said it does not have a vendor service agreement, contract or partnership with Zipstall and, as a result, has not taken any direct action with Zipstall regarding the situation.
Petterson stressed the city needs to make finding parking easier, not harder, and argues their vendor trying to shut out any perceived competition harms the economy.
“If we keep making it hard for people to park, they will stop coming to these areas and supporting these businesses. And these businesses need our love more now than they ever have,” Petterson said.