Some patients and visitors at Windsor Regional Hospital now have a new way to pay for parking.
The hospital is updating and enhancing the Pay & Display parking machines within several of its smaller lots at both the Met and Ouellette campuses.
The biggest part of the change will be that the new machines will no longer accept cash.
At the Met campus, the change affects the Emergency Department lot, the Cancer Centre lot and the Expectant Mothers and Babies, or Pink Lot. The lot connected to Tecumseh Road will remain a cash or card lot at the toll booth.
At the Ouellette Campus, it applies to the surface lots accessed from Goyeau Street near the Emergency Department and Main Entrance. The parking garage will still accept cash payments.
Brandon Bailey, the hospital’s Vice President of Redevelopment, says the existing parking equipment was becoming unreliable.
“Unfortunately, some of our parking infrastructure was heavily outdated and end of life, and we started seeing some machines stop working and malfunctioning on a regular basis. So we were forced to modernize our parking systems, which we’re looking forward to here at Windsor Regional.”
He says going cashless is expected to make the system more reliable and secure.
“What we were hearing from vendors is that this really helps enhance security, improves reliability, reduces downtime, allows for faster transactions. It’s more operationally efficient because you no longer have to go and collect the cash, it improves the financial accountability and tracking, and overall just modernizes the system.”
The hospital has made a number of changes to parking access, including dedicated street parking and a free shuttle service for cancer patients.
Bailey says the hospital continues to review how to make parking easier.
“We’re always turning over every rock, trying to make improvements where we can. We have somewhat limited capabilities with our existing infrastructure, but where we can improve the patient experience we’re trying to do so.”
The hospital says the new machines will accept debit and credit only, so patients and visitors using those surface lots will need to have a card available when paying for parking.