https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/feb/22/uk-wide-parkin...
It also makes it far easier for parking monitoring - with a description of each vehicle and the registration plate, a traffic warden can easily look at the cars parked in a particular area, discount the ones that have an active parking session, and focus their attention on the vehicles that have exceeded the allowed booking, or have bought a paper ticket from the machine.
It also means that you can do an approximation of real-time capacity in parking areas, without having to go to the expense of installing sensors in parking bays etc.
So lots of advantages, I think, over cash. The obvious downside is when the app doesn't work (I've had this happen on occasion) and for drivers who don't have smart phones (a small number, I think, but still worth considering) or technically less adept users - some of these apps have truly awful UX, which I've struggled with on occasion, so for people who struggle with technology, and particularly perhaps older people, they may be exclusionary. However, in most areas, you can still pay via the machine.
I think contactless is as easy and convenient as it gets. Enter registration number, tap, done.
If the government wanted to madate something useful for consumers it should mandate pay machines instead of app/phone only as some car parks now are.
The only reason these apps are becoming ubiquitous is that they are cheaper for the operators than installing and maintaining pay machines. That is it.
Contactless is easy - but there's a far higher cost (each machine needs to have connectivity etc). Plus it doesn't let you extend remotely, which is something I use very regularly. I guess from a user perspective that's a benefit, but from an operator perspective it's a potential downside - would I pre-pay for more parking if I couldn't extend? Probably. But would I potentially park elsewhere, for a car park where you pay on exit, thus removing that revenue from them entirely? Possibly. I guess it would depend on lots of factors, and my one-person study is perhaps not the most reliable data!
I agree that they are becoming ubiquitous because they are cheaper for operators, but I don't think that this is the only reason: I do think that they genuinely offer greater utility than a pay at machine with contactless option.
Interested to know what you mean "monitoring is already done by ANPR" because this is not my experience where I am based. Do you mean street based parking, or in car parks?
For the street based parking where I am the traffic wardens have a tablet that shows them the make, model, registration number of the vehicles parked in a particular area, and generally make their patrols on foot, so I'm not sure there's any ANPR being used. I guess there could be CCTV cameras cover exit and entry points to particular locations, but in European countries and the UK I'm pretty sure that there need to be notification signs that your registration plate is being captured in that situation.
There are indeed pay machines, and removing them is only a profit-squeezing play by the operators.
You also never need the QR code. It's only provided as a "convenience". And in fact they usually also provide a way to pay by phone (see illustrative picture in article).
So these are all issues created by bad engineering and operators trying to squeeze as much as they can without consideration for the users.
Right, but does it matter if it’s an app or a website?
> There are indeed pay machines, and removing them is only a profit-squeezing play by the operators.
Yes, and?
> You also never need the QR code. It's only provided as a "convenience". And in fact they usually also provide a way to pay by phone (see illustrative picture in article).
Of course you don’t need a QR code specifically, but you probably need some kind of URL (which can then be imitated by the scammer) so everyone can pay.
> So these are all issues created by bad engineering and operators trying to squeeze as much as they can without consideration for the users.
I wouldn’t call it bad engineering, it’s a tradeoff. Either expensive machines for every parking space or a simple sign with a QR code.