Pay by Phone - UK Parking App

[PRRobinson81]

Hi Everyone,

Used a 'Pay By Phone' car-park at the weekend (in the UK) and they only had Android and iOS Apps for the phone, everyone else had to go through a mobile web-site (although I ended up on the phone to them). Asked them on Twitter today (PayByPhone_UK) about a Windows Phone app and had a nice reply saying they have "no immediate plans however as demand increases the dev team will look to creating an app for windows users".

So, does anyone else use Pay By Phone car-parks and would you find a native app useful? Is it something we ought to try and push for, or am I being too demanding and should I settle for the mobile web-site?

Thoughts and comments welcomed,
P

 

[N_LaRUE]

I have to admit to never using that. I typically have change with me, or try to.

What I think would be nice is offering contactless payment at the machines. Would make life a lot easier in general. Whether that's by phone or card is fine.

 

[PRRobinson81]

Must admit it was a strange set of circumstances - I was at an all day event where I thought there'd be parking and there wasn't so, although I had some change with me it wasn't enough for 8hrs. Plus when I looked at the machine it had a temporary sign on it saying cash payments couldn't be processed at the moment, so there were 3 punters all standing around with their heads in their phones figuring out how to go through the process. Yeah, an NFC option would definitely have been quicker and more convenient!

 

[N_LaRUE]

Parking meters are the bane of my existence to be honest. I prefer a parking garage over meters (when the option is available) that way you just pay what time you spend instead of trying to guess and possibly stress about returning in time. Then there's those times where you can't find a long term parking meter...

That's a bit odd that you were at an all day event and there was no parking. Typical UK...

 

[FredBloggs007]

I use RingGo in the UK. They have apps across all mobile platforms... http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=b7105f7c-4239-4f60-8793-c2f045bfca29

 

[PRRobinson81]

Turns out I already had a RingGo account I'd completely forgotten about - thanks for highlighting that one - downloaded and installed!

 

[FredBloggs007]

Cool. It's a good app, but can't work out why they charge a convenience charge to each booking? Who's convenience... theirs or mine? Surely they should be promoting mobile payments as it's less expensive for them to send someone round to collect the money from the machines? Actually, I might email their customer service and see what they say?

 

[FredBloggs007]

Found this on their website... "A convenience fee is sometimes charged when using the RingGo service. This is not a charge levied by ourselves but the parking operator for each RingGo transaction (where applied).

The parking operator may have made their decision to apply this fee for a number of reasons which relate to convenience. For instance, it allows you to extend your parking session without having to return to your vehicle and you can buy longer-term parking through RingGo which may not necessarily be available using the on-site payment machines.

As more of our parking operators are beginning to waive the convenience fee, we hope over time this trend will continue across other areas."

 

[jeffrey_burkholder]

Pay by Phone UK Parking App nice information