The National Trust and app only car parks.

I'm not sure what the issue is really, there are 2/3 major parking apps yes it's a faff the 1st time you download them but then they're there. How often do you go out without a phone? I'm more likely to not have a wallet with me generally and even if I do it'll rarely have cash.

If I'm using a card I'd rather use the app so I'm not standing waiting in a queue whilst someone hunts for their last 5p, and I can then always extend the parking if I'm overrunning which has been useful on a fair few occasions.

I’m not sure what the issue is really,

It's because it's not like the old days which were so much better. We are, as a species, resistant to and fearful of things changing.

It's only a couple of years ago that folk were complaining that card-only payments became prevalent because of covid, now we're going "an app, why can't I just use contactless on my card?"

All fine. But “pay by an app that you haven’t got, might not be able to use, and don’t want to engage with” is not a fair equivalent to “pay using your normal non cash payment method”… far from it.

But how about “pay by a non cash payment method that you haven’t got, might not be able to use, and don’t want to engage with” versus “pay using your normal app”?

Not to pick on this post particularly, other contributors have said similar. The implication is that one form of payment is normal and another alien. But for me the opposite is true. I always have my phone; I sometimes (increasingly rarely) have a wallet containing cards; I probably have an emergency tenner in my back pocket; I never have loose coinage unless I've had to break the aforementioned tenner. Your normal, or my normal, is not everyone's normal.

A few have said "why should I take a mobile phone on a day out?" or similar.

Leaving aside "why wouldn't you, what do you have one for then?" for a moment; you're in a car park needing to pay for parking and you can't think of anywhere that you might be able to lock it up before heading out on foot?

Why should you take a mobile on a day out? Uh, to pay for parking? Is it more convenient to have a fistful of coins sloshing about in a pocket?

Have we so quickly forgotten the days of coin-only parking? "No change given" when parking is £2.10 and you only have pound coins. Having exact change but the machine doesn't yet accept newly introduced coins, or won't take coin denominations smaller than 10p. Running to a nearby shop in a panic to get change and then get back before you get a ticket. All the shops in a 50 yard radius refusing to give change without a purchase because they're sick of this shit every half an hour daily they "can't open the till." Wandering around the car park begging that that someone might give you 20p ("I've got 13p in pennies if you want it!") Out Of Order machines because someone's tried to raid it, please pay at other machine conveniently located half a mile away. Sprinting across town like Usain Bolt to get back to the car and put more money on because you were in the café when you suddenly realise that your payment expired 15 minutes ago. Etc etc.

The implication is that one form of payment is normal and another alien. But for me the opposite is true. I always have my phone; I sometimes (increasingly rarely) have a wallet containing cards;

And you can do contactless payment with either card or phone.

Imagine if every transaction became “download this app to pay”… with every new place of purchase insisting on a download. It would be a pain in the arse. Where as tap to pay (with card or phone or watch) is fast, simple, secure, convenient and quite rightly ubiquitous. The app only approach is the seller putting their needs ahead of the customer, and is only adopted where the seller considers the customers as already captured with no easy means to shop for alternatives. A shop wouldn’t insist on an app payment only approach, because they know customers wouldn’t stand for it.

It's about choice. Having watched someone standing on top of a wall waving their phone in the air to trying to get enough signal to download pay to park, I am not sure apps are the way forward.
If there was one parking app then no huge issue except if you don't want to have a smart phone. If you don't own a phone.
It's not unreasonable to want an alternative.

This. You used to have to notify them but it changed a few years back

OMG do people really use their Debit Card for buying stuff, home AND abroad?

If it's app only it's also almost certain to be more environmentally beneficial as it just requires a sign with details rather than a/multiple permanently powered up electrical machine/s (with a network connection if it's card enabled) printing single use tickets. It's a less of a security risk as it's not holding cash either.

OMG do people really use their Debit Card for buying stuff, home AND abroad?

Abroad yes, it's got lower ForEx costs than the credit card.

Imagine if every transaction became “download this app to pay”… with every new place of purchase insisting on a download. It would be a pain in the arse.

Pretty much how ATM cards started in the UK. There was competition between banks rather than interoperability. It'd be unheard of today to ask someone where the nearest cashpoint was and have them answer "well... who are you with?" I expect that the parking apps will go the same way, there will eventually be a dominant player who has bought out (or forced out) all the others.

Where as tap to pay (with card or phone or watch) is fast, simple, secure, convenient and quite rightly ubiquitous.

... but has no direct way of tying your payment back to your parked car. You'd either still need a ticket printer to Pay & Display, or use one of those hateful "key in your registration" keypads.

It’s about choice.
...
It’s not unreasonable to want an alternative.

Agreed 100%.

Have we so quickly forgotten the days of coin-only parking? “No change given” when parking is £2.10 and you only have pound coins. Having exact change but the machine doesn’t yet accept newly introduced coins, or won’t take coin denominations smaller than 10p. Running to a nearby shop in a panic to get change and then get back before you get a ticket. All the shops in a 50 yard radius refusing to give change without a purchase because they’re sick of this shit every half an hour daily they “can’t open the till.” Wandering around the car park begging that that someone might give you 20p (“I’ve got 13p in pennies if you want it!”) Out Of Order machines because someone’s tried to raid it, please pay at other machine conveniently located half a mile away. Sprinting across town like Usain Bolt to get back to the car and put more money on because you were in the café when you suddenly realise that your payment expired 15 minutes ago. Etc etc.

Or...
Get some coins from the pile in the cupholder, put in machine, go.
VS. twenty minutes standing in the pissing rain on the top of the nearby hill where there is actually a very feint signal on your network trying to get an app that you will only ever use once to download, entering a load of personal data to send god knows where to validate it, and then it fails and you have to start all over again before just giving up and leaving and then getting a ticket because you didn't pay.
.
Most people on here are pretty much ok with technology (obviously, this argument is being had on the internet) and most of them will have telephones which can do this. As I said on the previous page my parents aren't complete numpties but they have now effectively been barred from their two favourite beaches by this technology, the coins they had before just worked.

Get some coins from the pile in the cupholder, put in machine, go.
VS. twenty minutes standing in the pissing rain

Both of those scenarios require a degree of forward planning.

As I said on the previous page my parents aren’t complete numpties but they have now effectively been barred from their two favourite beaches by this technology, the coins they had before just worked.

You did. I don't buy it.

I totally get being caught out and I sympathise, whether it's because you don't have the app or don't have any coins. It can happen to the best of us (which is why choice is good). I get that an app takes time and faff to set up (plus rain, hills, vengeful gods, Bill Gates etc). I get that this is a pain in the arse, especially if it's somewhere new and it's yet another strange app to install.

But you know now what app they need for their favourite beaches so it can all be set up in the comfort of their own home ahead of their next visit. You've added the reg, added a payment method, the only thing they then need when actually in the car park is "two hours please" (a half-decent app will have geolocated which car park they're in).

If they can manage texting on WhatsApp, they can manage a preconfigured parking app.

... and honestly,

standing in the pissing rain on the top of the nearby hill where there is actually a very feint signal on your network

If that's genuinely the case and there are no other payment methods offered other than an app, I'd be sticking a note in my windscreen saying "I'm with [provider] and there's no signal here so your app doesn't work." If there's a payment meter installed somewhere that requires a mobile signal and there isn't one, they can't be the first customers to hit that problem.

As I said above, a lot of this is easy for people like us, you make it sound so simple.
It's harder for an 80yr old man who I would be very surprised even knows where his telephone is, never mind if it has any credit in, and a woman in her mid 60s who's daughter had finally showed her how to use what's app. I'm not entirely sure her internet works if she's not on wifi

Which one of them is driving?

Which one of them is driving?

Nail -> head.

I’d be sticking a note in my windscreen saying “I’m with [provider] and there’s no signal here so your app doesn’t work.” If there’s a payment meter installed somewhere that requires a mobile signal and there isn’t one, they can’t be the first customers to hit that problem.

Then you'd be getting a note back inviting you to pay a £120 parking charge (half if you pay within 30 days).

Honestly, no wonder we end up with such shite infrastructure when there are so many folk that can't see beyond their own use case "well it works for me so it must be fine, you're obviously doing it wrong". It's like the apocryphal iPad, everywhere...

Then you’d be getting a note back inviting you to pay a £120 parking charge (half if you pay within 30 days).

Then I'd be having an argument. If there is a parking meter which requires a mobile phone with data connection to use and offers no alternative form of payment, which is placed in an area which doesn't have a signal on a given provider (there are only four carriers in the UK), then it's demonstrably not possible to pay.

I do rather suspect however that this is a scenario best described as "hypothetical."

Why should you be compelled to have a phone to pay for parking?
If you don't want a phone why should you not have an alternative?
Because most people have a phone shouldn't make phone use obligatory.

Why should you be compelled to have coins to pay for parking?
If you don’t want coins why should you not have an alternative?
Because most people have coins shouldn’t make coin use obligatory.

Having choice is generally a good thing.

Then I’d be having an argument. If there is a parking meter which requires a mobile phone with data connection to use and offers no alternative form of payment, which is placed in an area which doesn’t have a signal on a given provider (there are only four carriers in the UK), then it’s demonstrably not possible to pay.

I do rather suspect however that this is a scenario best described as “hypothetical.”

And you would lose that argument by merit of the fact that when you park in a car park you are by accepting the terms and conditions on display. If you cannot fulfil your end of that contract then they can reasonably take steps to penalise you for it. I hate the robbing gits as much as anyone but sometimes they have you bang to rights.

Having choice is generally a good thing.

And therein lies the rub.

The issue isn't choice, it's when you're left with no useful alternatives. Either use a payment involving a phone or another payment involving a phone isn't really a choice. A diverse and separate method of payment is.

Card readers are expensive and coin meters even more so. You'd be ok with card and coin users paying more for the luxury service that these are to cover their costs I assume.

Abroad yes, it’s got lower ForEx costs than the credit card.

And the cost to you having your bank account emptied while overseas?

You say that as if app "convenience charges" aren't a thing.

Weak argument.

And the cost to you having your bank account emptied while overseas?

And the likelihood of that?

It's no more risk than I'd be exposed to at home, it's less risk than wandering around with wads of cash.

And the cost to you having your bank account emptied while overseas

About the same as having it emptied in the UK and no more likely.

This reminds me of a recent trip to Reykjavik, where the city buses no longer accept cash or card payments. It is all done via an app. We were told to get off the bus (in the passing rain) so the bus could continue its journey and we would then need to download the app in order to catch the next bus..
Downloaded the app, then tried to enter my credit card details. Not accepted, several times. Tried my debit card, several times. Also not accepted. The next bus came and went. Third type of card was acceptable, so we could now buy tickets to travel.
On paying, the app produced a qr code which needed to be scanned on the bus. The code readers were rather temperamental, taking several attempts for it to read the code. Not just my phone, but everyone else's who got on every bus we were on.
It struck me as being a software/app developers wet dream, whereas in reality it was a crap idea. Why not have a contactless card reader - simple and no messing around, especially in a city where foreign tourists far outnumber the local population (who were also struggling with the qr code).
Without doubt, using an app for the sake of it.

It struck me as being a software/app developers wet dream, whereas in reality it was a crap idea.

(albeit the old fogeys still have the option of paying by cash or contactless too 😂)

It’s great because when you get a day ticket or even just a return, there’s no physical ticket to lose.

How do you get home when your battery has died?

How do you get home when your battery has died?

Although personally, cannot even remember the last time my battery actually ran flat, capacity is very good these days & there's usually some means of charging it when out.

If people actually spent as much time getting to grips with technology as they do finding problems with it there wouldn't actually be many problems in the first place 🤣

buy another one

What with?

Another example where multiple payment methods, rather than app only, is more flexible.

If people actually spent as much time getting to grips with technology as they do finding problems with it there wouldn’t actually be many problems in the first place

Never be involved in software testing.

What with?

If I regularly had a need to use a car park that required an app I would get it.

I must be lucky because I have only needed to have an app out of necessity once and it was a massive pain in the arse. It took about 25 minutes to set up, the family was getting pissed off and it felt like a shit situation to be forced in to. I am not a technophobe and I happily pay for parking using contactless but I made a vow there and then to not use an app car park again. Childish you may think but it has caused no issues to me.

As for cash I always have a load in a little bag made of change from takeaways etc. and I need my 12p for the Lymm Bridge when I am working down that way. It sounds like I am in the minority in this practice. I do prefer to pay via contactless

I agree that being forced into a (new) app system with no notice can be really shit. My first experience was at a train station without a lot of time to spare for a v early morning train and after struggling and failing to get the app to work I was lucky to find the ticket office in the station open and able to get a ticket.

However when it works smoothly it's a decent system. Still think a more flexible system including contactless is probably better for most though. Coins are crap of course.

Never be involved in software testing.

Quite.

That's a very naiive statement as to capacity. Older phones aren't necessarily going to last all day especially if it has other stuff running in the background. But if course its only the poor and technically ignorant that own those ones so **** em. Right?

Older phones aren’t necessarily going to last all day

You were talking about not needing a return ticket on the bus when someone brought up the scenario of running out of battery before the return journey.

And why the “melons” comment?

People want the choice, or can see why the choice should be made available to others. Some people are happy to use app payments. Great. But anyone pointing out why other payment methods being offered as well can be preferable (accessibility, connectivity issues, device reliability, time wasting, data protection, security, devices being locked down for work, not wanting to carry a device everywhere at all times) …they are accused of either being “stuck in the past” or “technophobes”. Accusations that are very simple, and simplistic, and in the case of many of the posters you are “engaging with” simply not true.

Thank you Kelvin, put into polite terms what would probably have gotten me a reprimand.

Don't most app-ticketed public transport systems have power / USB ports these days?

"I'm terribly sorry Mr Conductor, my phone with my ticket seems to have run out of charge."

"Not a problem sir, would you like to borrow a microUSB, USB-C or Lightning cable for a couple of minutes in order to retrieve that?

The only time I've been stung by this in recent times is the exit gate at a train station (Leeds I think).