jonathan18:

 

Lizard1977:

 

I've been using the Frogparking app in PN for over a year, and it's pretty good.  I'm one of those people that normally avoids paying for parking wherever possible, but the convenience of paying per minute and not having to wait at the machine to make payment mean I know use paid parking more often.  Top up via the app is easy, and for a $20 (minimum) top up the fee is just 60c.

 

Sensors are pretty robust and to my knowledge there's been very little vandalism in Palmerston North.  Can't speak for the Wellington set up though.

 

There have been plenty of grumbles about the Frogparking system since it was introduced several years ago, but I get the feeling that it's more to do with people's aversion to paid parking full stop.  Theoretically, it does mean that a parking warden can be dispatched if a sensor detects a vehicle but no payment, but my experience is that the area to be covered is large and the number of wardens means this happens rarely.  Last week I forgot to activate the app for my bay and came back 3 hours later expecting a ticket, but there was none.  It's hardly efficient to have a warden chasing alerts all over the area handing out tickets.

 

Some people grumble about the change of the system being more complicated (having to type in a unique bay number rather than pay for a piece of paper), but I think we should give people more credit.  I think people adjust reasonably quickly, but there will always be those who hate having to change their ways, and nothing will change that.

 

 

Thanks for the heads-up on the wider usage of the Frogparking app - I had no idea until I read this that it was usable across the city now. I ALWAYS struggle to have change to pay for parking (this is one of the few uses I have for cash), so this provides an ideal solution. Will download the app now...

 

It's not perfect by any means.  I've found that if you wander too far away from the original park it can sometimes have difficulty validating which park you are in.  But this is down to the fact that the two-character bay codes aren't completely unique (and are repeated in different sectors of the city).  When they eventually move to a three-character system then the bay codes should be completely unique across the City, and this will make paying by app less dependent on validating based on cross-referencing the GPS coordinates.