The COVID-19 Pandemic Becomes Momentum For The Mayor Of Surabaya To Implement Cashless Parking

SURABAYA - Surabaya Mayor Eri Cahyadi issued a Circular (SE) regarding the implementation of non-cash parking payments made by individuals or private business entities as an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Head of the Surabaya City Transportation Service (Dishub) Irvan Wahyudrajad in Surabaya, Friday, said SE numbered 645.2/825446.7.14/2021 which was signed by the Mayor of Surabaya Eri Cahyadi on July 15, 2021, guided by Regional Regulation Number 3 of 2018, SE Mayor of Surabaya Number 360/3324/436.8.4/2020, and SE Mayor of Surabaya Number 443/7787/436.8.4/2021 concerning the COVID-19 Emergency PPKM and the National Non-Cash Movement Program by Bank Indonesia. "In the SE, there are two important points conveyed by the Mayor of Surabaya," he said as reported by Antara.

The two points are, first, an appeal to parking officers, both parking attendants at malls, hotels, and roadside parking attendants to continue to apply strict health protocols and avoid using whistles.

According to Irvan, the use of whistles by parking attendants caused them to lower their masks. Therefore, the use of whistles will be replaced with assistive devices in the form of flags, so that parking attendants can still use masks when directing vehicles. "Sometimes they use whistles, yes, so they have to take off their masks, so the whistle will be replaced with a tool that can be in the form of a flag," said Irvan.

Second, Irvan said, Mayor Eri appealed to people and/or business entities that provide paid parking services to support their main business as well as all Regional Apparatuses (PD) and private business entities to provide a payment system for parking services electrically or non-cash.

"Then it's related to the payment system, so the guardian urges you to use non-cash as much as possible, whether it's in malls, in apartments, then in hotels, tourist attractions, BUMN, and BUMD," said Irvan.

He explained that parking itself has two objects, namely parking fees and parking taxes. Parking fees are under the supervision of Dishub, such as parking buildings managed by Dishub, such as in Kertajaya, Balai Pemuda, and Kali Tile.

While the parking tax is a parking tax owned by shopping centers, apartments, BUMN, BUMD, and hotels that have their own parking system. "The parking levy is under the supervision of the Transportation Agency, if the parking tax is in a private place, it can be in malls, apartments, hotels, including BUMN and BUMD," he said.

He explained that the use of non-cash payments for parking services can use a QRIS or QR Code that is already connected to various banking service providers and digital wallet applications.

Therefore, he said, currently there are many non-cash payment options that can be used by the public. In fact, the Surabaya Transportation Agency has started to socialize to roadside parking attendants that there is an alternative to non-cash payments using an e-payment card if there is a parking meter in the area. "If you have a parking meter, you can use an e-payment card. The newest one can use QRIS or QR Code," he said.

Irvan explained that currently parking buildings managed by the Transportation Agency and several roadside parking points have used non-cash payment alternatives, such as on Jalan Sedap Malam, Jalan Jimerto, and Taman Bungkul. This will be done in stages so that in the future there will be more roadside parking points that provide non-cash payments.

"We will gradually prioritize parking the zone and the parking points in the city center. If malls and hotels have parking gates, yes, it will be easier," he said.

He added that the use of non-cash payments has an advantage because people do not have to come into direct contact when making payment transactions, such as when using cash, so as to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission.

"Actually, there are many options using non-cash payments, so we are promoting this so that we can suppress the spread of COVID-19, because one of them is through money, it is also a ticket, including the source of the spread of COVID-19," he said regarding the application of non-cash parking payments from the Mayor of Surabaya. Eri Cahyadi's.