Deborah Embley, her husband John Deiss and their son were fined £240 for not downloading a parking application quickly enough. The couple was on a day trip with friends to Southwold, Suffolk. However, the signal of their mobile phones was so bad that they were unable to download the parking app within the 15 minute free parking period.
It is not our responsibility that it took so long for the app to be downloaded and registered. “I worry about older or non-mobile phone users who have difficulty paying, if at all they can.” said Embley 60, a retired accounting.
Drivers can now use about 30 different apps to pay for parking at private companies and local authorities. Rates vary greatly, from 70p per hour to nearly £14.
Deborah Embley with her husband John Deis
According to government statistics, drivers pay almost £5.5m a day – £1.93b a year – to park in public roads or council bays. The government figures show that this is an increase from £1.66billion in 2017-18, and excludes the revenue made by private parking companies.
The apps that we’re all being forced to download come with a variety of additional fees. These include green levies and charges for “convenience”, “service”, parking insurance, and even costs to receive a confirmation text.
Some companies make additional revenue through commercial tie-ins. One, in a bizarre move, advertises counselling services to its users. The profits at the largest parking app companies have increased, and bosses are earning millions of dollars in dividends and pay.
Parking is usually charged at a fixed rate, which is set by the parking owner or local authority. If you use a card or cash, this is the price you pay. However, if you choose to pay through an app, there may be additional charges. The apps’ commercial agreements with car park owners determine these charges.
The RingGo app can help you find the cheapest parking in Bradford’s city centre. Rates are as low as 70p per hour. London is the most expensive area, with rates of up to £13 per hour for vehicles that emit more pollution.
Some local authorities charge fuel surcharges through parking apps in order to encourage the use of greener vehicles. If you drive a vehicle that is more polluting, this could increase your bill by 40%.
If you pay cash, the cost to park an old Land Rover in Westminster (London) for one hour is £6.60. RingGo would cost £9.24 if you paid cash. Some diesel vehicles older than 2015 may have a surcharge of 50%, bringing the total cost per hour to £13.86 – more than twice the base rate.
Apps can tell you what your car’s emissions are because they require your registration number. The app is also linked to the DVLA database.
There are also extra charges. Some apps charge a 20p “convenience” fee to cover the app’s cost. Some apps charge a transaction or service fee up to £2.49 which is essentially the equivalent. Some local authorities used to absorb these costs, but now they allow app companies to pass them along.
Some apps will also send you a text message to let you know when your parking time is up. This usually costs between 10p and 20p. YourParkingSpace, for example, offers a confirmation text message, a reminder and an expiry alert for 20p. The total cost of all three is 60p.
Some apps ask you to cancel a parking session as you leave. This is similar to how you would pay at the machine to leave a car park. It is easy to forget this when using an app.
RingGo, a company with 19 millions users, announced that its “start/stop parking” feature is available in Northern Ireland, certain parts of Salford and Greater Manchester, as well as the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, Wandsworth and East Devon. The company said all locations with start/stop parking had a maximum time. For example, in the West Street parking lot in Axminster (Devon), you’ll only be charged £3 for 24 hour even if your session is not cancelled.
Helen Thompson paid too much for parking because she did not opt in to receive text reminders. Thompson, 47 used the RingGo parking app in Wandsworth in southwest London. She parked for an hour which was supposed to cost £3.40 but forgot to finish her session and ended up paying £7.24.
She said, “I already paid an 18p convenience fee and 50p for text confirmations. Surely that should include a reminder of the end of parking session?” When you’re rushing around with the kids, it’s easy to forget. “I would prefer to pay by card or cash.”
RingGo has said that they do not keep any of the fees collected via their app, but instead charge councils a fee for the transaction. The fee can be passed on to the drivers as “convenience fees”. RingGo keeps the fee from the text message reminders.
YourParkingSpace (another app) said that its “service charge” of up £2.49 covered “the costs to run the platform and provide related services”. The app said that its optional text message reminder, confirmation and expiry notification was not hidden and covered the costs of running the platform and providing related services.
JustPark stated that its transaction fees for local authority contracts ranged between 5p and 20p. The cost of a text message receipt is 20p. Insurance for your parking session costs 29p per hour. A text message reminder also costs 20p.
Apps that offer insurance, like JustPark, can increase your costs by more than 50%.
PayByPhone now offers an option to “add insurance”, which will cover you in the event that your vehicle is stolen while parked. Without insurance, a 24-hour stay at Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk could cost £8,80, but with it, £13,64.
Exclusions can make this insurance useless. Windscreens, internal and external fixtures or fittings are excluded. The police report must show that the vehicle was entered by force.
Check to see if you are covered by your home or car insurance. You cannot claim under two policies simultaneously.
Jonny Combe said that the insurance coverage was entirely optional. If their policy covers it, they can use their current car or home insurance to make a claim. PayByPhone protect has no excess and is perfect for drivers who have a good no-claims record on their motor insurance but don’t want to lose it.
Users of PayByPhone are shown advertisements for other services including counselling sessions. On the payment page, a message reads: “Begin today your wellness journey”. The company offers online therapy for stress, depression and anxiety by connecting its customers with a licensed counsellor.
Combe explained that the pilot program was designed to offer promotional offers for products and services following a parking purchase. These offers are completely optional and include everything from meal deals and groceries to mental health counseling.
Vipnet, a start-up in Zagreb in Croatia, was one of the first European parking apps. RingGo introduced the first UK app in 2009.
Anthony Eskinazi is the CEO of JustPark. He said that pay-and-display machines may be extinct in a decade. He said last year that he did not see any local authorities purchasing traditional meters after 2025.
RingGo, in an August 2023 submission to the MPs, said that there are about 250 million cashless transactions in the UK every year.
The date for the introduction of a national platform to allow drivers to access all parking companies through a single application has not been determined.
A survey conducted by the motoring association RAC of 1,900 drivers in 2012 revealed that 19% said their local authority either had scrapped parking payment machines accepting cash or debit cards or was in consultation to do so, forcing drivers instead to use their mobile phones for payments. In London, 44 percent of those asked said that this was the situation.
Parking apps have agreements for revenue sharing with local authorities that are strapped for cash. According to an analysis by the AA, the income that councils reaped from parking grew to £962.3 in 2022-23, up from £317.6 in the previous year.
Churchill, an insurer, says that the hourly parking rates during daytime hours have increased by 11 percent in just two years. This is because councils are trying to balance their budgets.
Jack Cousens, from the AA, said: “With local government budgets being stretched, drivers represent the biggest source of revenue.” In an effort to simplify the management of car parks, more councils are investing into apps.
Parking apps aren’t regulated but they are often members of a trade association such as the British Parking Association, or the International Parking Community. To access DVLA information about vehicles and drivers, they must adhere to a code.
Parking on Private Land Appeals (the parking ombudsman) reported that it received 84,474 requests from motorists in 2022. This is a 53 percent increase from the previous year.
RingGo has contracts with local authorities in London, Leeds, and Nottingham and operates in 17,000 locations.
Peter O’Driscoll is the Managing Director of RingGo, and has been since 2009. He is responsible for the extraordinary growth of the company. He was the head of sales for National Car Parks Limited (one of Britain’s biggest private car parks) where he created cashless parking solutions.
O’Driscoll described RingGo as “Airbnb for parking”, because it does not own assets but allows local authorities and landowners to accept payments for the use of their spaces.
RingGo stated: “Peter began his involvement in parking 20 years ago, when cash was still the only payment method and people sometimes didn’t have enough change. The industry was looking to modernise. He spearheaded the automated payment technology at RingGo, which led to him creating the UK’s very first parking app by late 2009.
RingGo’s revenue in 2022 was £25.8 millions , up from £17.8 million in 2021, according to the company’s latest accounts. Profits increased to £5.1 million from a loss of £11,282 in 2021 due to Covid lockdowns.
PayByPhone is the second largest parking app in the UK, with 50 million users across America and Europe. The UK accounts for 2022 show that the revenue was £6.2 million, up from £4.2 millions in 2017. Operating profits also increased from £184.007.
JustPark App had revenues of £12 million in 2023, and operating profits (before taxes) of 87,000.
YourParkingSpace has too little space to keep detailed records.
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