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In these mobile times, paying for parking via app can cost a little more than at a parking meter. These fees, often unknown to motorists, are used to finance service, maintenance and additional features such as SMS alerts.
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In many cities, after you have passed your slot, you have two options: pay for parking at the parking meter or via your phone. But is the price the same? We do the test in Annières-sur-Seine, in the Paris suburbs.
When we carry out the experiment, it is 12:40 p.m. and we have just parked our vehicle for two hours. The fare at the parking meter is 1.80 euros. Several operators offer payment by telephone. We start with the European market leader. By selecting two hours of parking, the price displayed is 2.07 euros, or 27 cents more than at the parking meter. This difference corresponds to the service fees, specified in small letters at the bottom before paying.
Motorists used to paying via the application had never paid attention to this detail. “Is it more expensive? Maybe I’ll change my payment method”, confides one of them. For someone else, it’s not a problem: “I admit that it doesn’t bother me. Afterwards, it would have been a few euros, then I would have had it across my throat.”
How does the operator justify these additional costs? According to him, these few cents are essential to keep his business running. Olivier Koch, general manager of Easy Park France, specifies: “It is not because it is a mobile application that there are not development teams behind it, that there is not innovation, that there is not maintenance of this system, and above all customer service which is there to support you when you have a problem”.
Another subtlety with the Pay by Phone application: in the settings, it is possible to check a box to receive an SMS before the end of parking. This service, also paid, is indicated by a small notice. “Quite honestly, these are facilities. It’s true that we didn’t have that before, but hey, I got used to it. But I didn’t know that it was paid for”explains a motorist.
This SMS costs between 15 and 25 cents depending on the city. Some service costs are the responsibility of the user, others of the town hall, which can choose to cover them.
