After last week’s news that paying for parking using the new pay-by-phone app Parkmobile may not prevent you from getting a ticket, company officials were quick to respond. Their argument? There’s really a very, very slim chance that you’ll get hit with a ticket if you use their app. Laurens K. Eckelboom, Parkmobile’s executive vice-president for sales, wrote us in an email:

Between July 1st and December 31st 2011 Parkmobile’s Customer Support Desk sent 2,611 citations for dismissal to DMV. With 303 parking days a year in DC this means there was an average of 17 dismissed tickets per day in DC via our pay by phone system (2,611 / (303 / 2).

In Fiscal Year 2010 (October 1st, 2009 to September 30th, 2010) there were 1.7 million parking tickets issued, of which 72,670 were dismissed. This means there was an average of 240 dismissed parking tickets per day in DC (72,670 / 303). Please note this was before the citywide introduction of pay by phone in July 2011.

The average number of dismissed pay by phone parking tickets per day (July 2011-December 2011) compared to the average number of dismissed parking tickets per day in FY 2010 is 7% (240 / 17). Between July 1st 2011 and December 31st 2011 Parkmobile exceeded 1 million transactions, generating 25-30% of the parking revenue in DC. In addition, 99.75% of the time a pay by phone parker is unaffected by erroneous citations (2,611 dismissed tickets / 1,011 million pay by phone transactions). All above mentioned Agencies and Parkmobile are continuously working on further bringing this % back to zero. Another step forwards will be made on January 10th when there will be an important enforcement software update that will include an additional pay by phone background check before a ticket is issued.

Pay by phone parking is therefore safe and reliable. If unexpected a ticket is written in error, the pay by phone parker has the convenient option to contest the ticket and attach a printed Parkmobile transaction proof (overview of payment, location, time and date) to the DMV dismissal request. After DMV approval, no hearing is needed and the ticket will be dismissed.

Parkmobile has more than 180,000 registered users in DC.

That being said, very little is going to stop you from getting a ticket if you block a bike lane — enforcement is up sharply, reports TBD.