The fault forced councils to declare free parking for the rest of the week, with fines related to non-payment of fares being cancelled.
Parking operator HeiTech Padu Berhad executive vice-president Abdul Halim Md Lassim said the problem began when it launched an improved version of the app.
At a press conference at Komtar today, he said the Penang Smart Parking (PSP) app will be up and running tomorrow.
HeiTech was given a seven-year concession to manage the parking lots in the state. About 400,000 motorists are registered with PSP, the operator said.
At the same conference, Seberang Perai mayor Rozali Mohamud said the operators should have alerted both of Penang’s councils before conducting the upgrade.
“You should have consulted us first. At least we could have decided on a contingency plan in the event there is an outage. Please take this seriously, as it involves the peace of mind of Penang motorists,” he said.
Penang Island mayor Yew Tung Seang concurred with his colleague’s remarks, saying the outage should not happen again.
State Local Government Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said HeiTech still needed to pay its minimum guaranteed sum due to both the island and Seberang Perai city councils despite not being able to collect fares from Sept 1 to Sept 4.
“To be fair, most motorists like the PSP app as it is convenient. This issue began when they (HeiTech) were upgrading their app for the benefit of users,” he said.
On Tuesday, PSP users took to Facebook to complain after failing to log in to their PSP account, with some reporting a “zero balance” in their e-wallets.
According to a filing with Bursa, the company signed a 65:35 profit sharing for the first five years (with the 35% going to the councils) and 60:40 deal for the final two years. It signed the seven-year concession with the two councils in May 2019.
HeiTech had said it was spending RM115 million to digitalise the parking management in Penang as part of a private finance initiative.
The parking rate is 80 sen an hour for the island from Monday to Saturday, 9am to 6pm, and 40 sen an hour in Seberang Perai (Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6pm).