Paying for parking is being made easier with a new scheme being installed across Cardiff.
If you are coming in to Cardiff to shop or meet up with friends or colleagues – it can always be annoying trying to find a parking space, find the correct change or queue up at a parking machine to make the payment.
Paying by phone options will now make the payment process quicker and easier and is already available all Heath car parks, The Parade (Roath), the City Centre and most locations in Cardiff Bay with plans to extend the scheme to all pay and display and on-street car parking by end of March.
The scheme works by either downloading a new app – MIPermit – onto a smart phone from Google Play or the App Store, which then allows you to set up an account, or by sending a text message or making a voice call using the telephone number at the location that you are parking, or simply registering your details via the link on the Council’s website.
When registered to the scheme via the App those coming into Cardiff will be able to find out the tariff in advance, pay before they park up, or as they walk away from their car, and if they are going to be later than they expected – they can extend their parking session without having to return to their car.
The system even allows people to sign up to a text service – which will notify them when their parking provision is due to end.
The City Council recently launched the Smart Parking app – with more than 3000 sensors being installed in on street pay and display parking bays and in some Council car parks – which allows the customer to plan ahead and see where parking is available via a free to download app so they can drive straight to an available parking bay.
The politics of parking
While the vast majority of motorists are satisfied with their neighbours’ parking a significant minority of 14% describe their neighbours’ parking is ‘poor’ or ‘appalling’.
The top issue for the aggrieved who are often busy waging their own ‘cold wars’ is the selfish way their neighbours’ park, with 62% citing this as the reason they chose the words ‘appalling’ or ‘poor’.
The other big gripes in the RAC Insurance Home Parking survey were that 41% being annoyed about neighbours’ parking in the street when they have the space to park on their own drives.
Nearly a third complained they had been blocked in by neighbours’ parking across their drives and more than a quarter who were unhappy about cars being left with their front or rear sticking over the pavement.
To make matters worse, for three-quarters the ‘appalling’ and ‘poor’ parking behaviour takes place every day and for a quarter it has even led them to falling out or not speaking.
Some 6% of the upset category say they have applied the ‘taste of their own medicine’ approach by deliberately parking their car badly to annoy their neighbour.
This usually involves parking right up against their neighbour’s bumper to make it difficult to get out or parking right outside their house where they normally park.