Boston Rebuilds Payments to Simplify Municipal Money Flows

Cities depend on thousands of small transactions that happen every day, but the systems behind those payments often work against the efficiency city departments need.

Boston decided it could no longer operate with decades-old tools that made it hard to collect, track and reconcile parking and small-dollar municipal payments.

That push to modernize is now taking shape through Passport Payments, a platform the city co-developed with curb management solutions provider Passport to simplify how money moves across Boston’s transportation-related units.

Boston’s Fragmented System

Parking is the most visible source of small-dollar payments for Boston, but it is also one of the most complex. Finance Manager Rich Andrade told PYMNTS Karen Webster as part of the Monday Conversation series that Boston wanted a single system that could address the needs, especially of high-traffic areas like Quincy Market and downtown.

“The city wanted a system that could really unify our operations just to make the city more livable for residents and easier to navigate for visitors,” he said. “We get a large volume of transactions in our touristy areas, and before this I was dealing with having a primary vendor along with five or six other vendors just to reconcile several bank accounts. Passport has consolidated those six or seven websites into one platform.”

Passport and Boston built the platform together. Passport CTO Gene Rohrwasser said the company designed the product specifically for the public sector and the complexity of municipal money flows. “It is a purpose-built solution for the public sector,” he said. “Cities are very dynamic and there are a lot of moving pieces and constituent interactions.”

For Boston, the underlying problem was not simply the number of payments coming in but the number of systems required to manage them. Webster pointed out that the city’s existing systems required significant coordination across data and operational processes and asked how Passport Payments fit into that broader evolution.

From parking enforcement to appeals to permits to kiosk payments, each function had been handled by different vendors and separate portals that did not speak to each other. Andrade said that structure meant switching between multiple sites and data sources, creating delays in reconciling payments and increasing the possibility of errors. He said the transition to Passport Payments has reduced workloads by almost 40% because the city no longer spends hours pulling data from multiple systems, with spreadsheets in the mix.

Constituents have felt that fragmentation, too. Andrade said residents had limited ability to manage their accounts or receive timely notifications. With the new system, they can receive email and text notices and access information sooner. That shift, said Andrade, helps Boston take a step toward modern expectations for managing city services.

Building With a Public-Sector Focus

Andrade’s team helped Passport identify every user persona involved in the process, from operations staff to people reconciling daily cash and card payments. Rohrwasser said that input ensured the platform addressed all reporting and workflow needs without making assumptions.

The RFP and implementation took about four months, a reflection of how many parts of the department had to be modernized at the same time. Andrade said Passport’s support helped break down a contract structure that had been in place for four decades. By the end of the fiscal year, the system was ready to launch, and debuted in October.

The impact of the unified system was immediate. Andrade said the platform allows him to report cleaner, more accurate information in real time instead of waiting several days for batches to clear. Teams that once spent time tracking down exceptions now focus on quality control. The ability to see transactions across departments in one place has simplified oversight and reduced the risk of discrepancies.

For constituents, Passport Payments provides a more consistent experience for parking and related services, including the upgraded ParkBoston app that now integrates into the broader payment infrastructure.

Boston and Beyond

Passport already works with more than 800 cities, and Rohrwasser said Boston’s input makes the platform easily applicable elsewhere. “We have been able to roll it out across hundreds of other customers,” he said. “Having a technology platform that can support that scale is important, and in the mornings we will process over 800 transactions a second. A strong user experience at the top of the funnel drives adoption and gives the city a touch point with constituents that feels modern and intuitive.”

Looking 18 months ahead, Boston’s work with Passport Payments is only the beginning. As Rohrwasser said, the real opportunity comes from using data to elevate what city teams can focus on. “There is a lot in the way of how we can further use this data from the curb all the way down to the payment data that can further transform the city’s operation and find more efficiencies,” he said. “That has a ton of applicability across the other 800 cities that Passport serves.”