Communauto pilot project in Montreal to allow parking in paid spots

Communauto to allow parking at meters Montreal car-sharing service Communauto will launch a pilot project allowing cars to parking in metered spots.

MONTREAL — Communauto is gearing up to launch a pilot project in Montreal that will allow users to leave their vehicles in paid parking spots.

"We will be charged for the price of the space that we occupy," said Benoît Robert, Communauto CEO. "Our customer will be able, in our app, to enter the number of the meter so they won't have to pay by themselves."

City officials say they hope this new initiative will encourage Montrealers to come downtown.

"We're opening the meters to get better access to downtown," explained Eric Alan Caldwell, Montreal executive committee member responsible for transportation. "To get better rotation of the places; we're trying it and we're very confident it will give us good results."

The pilot project is expected to begin this summer in Montreal's Ville-Marie, Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie and Plateau-Mont-Royal boroughs.

Communauto says it is confident the project will be a success, noting it saw a 40 per cent rise in new subscribers in 2019.

The company adds it is also expanding its fleet across Canada, adding 700 vehicles to its service.

This announcement comes as car-sharing competitor Car2Go gets ready to close up shop in North America.