News
A city switches off its parking app and nobody misses it
After six years and three redesigns, the app is gone. Drivers pay at a meter again, or by text message.
Technology columnist
5 min read
The meters never left. They are now the main way to pay again.
The city’s parking app stopped working at midnight on Thursday. By Friday afternoon the council had received four complaints, two of them about the meters.
The app cost more to run each year than it saved in staff time.
Counting the cost
An internal review found that fewer than one in five drivers used the app, and that most of them also carried coins. Support requests took more staff time than emptying the meters.
We built something that worked for us and asked residents to download it. They had other plans.
Text-message payment stays for those who want it. It runs on a national system the city does not have to maintain.
A trend, carefully
Two other councils are reviewing their own apps. Neither has decided anything yet.
Ines Okafor
Technology columnist
Ines writes about technology and power, and who gets to decide what the machines are for.
