Pilot project enables parking fees to be paid by app

A pilot project enabling motorists to pay their parking fees by app rather than with coins began in the city on Thursday. Other cities in Switzerland are expected to follow suit.

Looking for somewhere to park can often take more time than expected and test drivers’ patience. Even when having found one, the next thing is they have to look for the appropriate coins to use. If the machine does not give change, the procedure is additionally annoying. In fact there are those who prefer to just leave their car parked without paying and risk paying pay a fine.

Now, with the help of a smartphone app, the whole procedure can be made so much simpler. With the help of the Twint payment app, all you have to do is scan the QR code on the metre and indicate how long you want to stay, payment actually being made through a pre-stored account or credit card. What is more, should you leave the space earlier than expected, you can get some money back.

As Alessandro Rausa, Twint’s chief developer, explained on demonstrating the system, the whole procedure by app is so easy and takes less time than having to search for coins and insert them into a meter.

Reto Schläpfer, the managing director of Digitalparking, a Swiss parking management company which is also involved in the project, said what a strong partner they had found in Twint. Thanks also to Pascal Niquille, the CEO of the Zuger Kantonalbank, parking spaces by the bank now offer this system. “We have been partners with Twint from the outset,” he said, “so we willingly cooperated when it came to this project.” Now the system is to be gradually extended to other areas.

If all goes according to plan, by the end of next year it should be possible to pay for parking spaces by this method across the whole city. In fact Schläpfer is expecting the system to be unfurled in over half of large Swiss cites by the end of 2019, too. Needless to say, with some 15,500 parking spaces across the whole country, the potential is enormous. Over the next few months, the cities of Thun, St Gallen, Rapperswil, Frauenfeld, Lugano and Yverdon-les Bains, are to introduce the system, too, with Zurich following suit early next year. Other large cities such as Basel, Bern and Lucerne are a little more hesitant. “The trouble is,” explained Schläpfer, “that the greater the city, the greater the hurdle in introducing the scheme.” Indeed, one has only to think about the administration involved, then all police and parking wardens will have to have access to the system, too. It is the size of Zug which makes it ideal for such a pilot project.

Not that the idea of a payment app for parking is new. A number of start-up companies in Switzerland and abroad have developed similar systems, the most successful one, Easypark of Sweden, is currently in use in 11 European countries.

The Twint AG company is headquartered in Zurich and used by Credit Suisse. Postfinance, Raiffeisen UBS and the Zürcher Kantonalbank, not to mention SIX and Worldline. Indeed with 930,000 registered users it is the most widely used payment app in Switzerland, though only 10 per cent of Swiss people use this form of mobile payment.

“This is not surprising,” said Thierry Kneisseler, the CEO of Twint. “For many people, cashless payment such as this is extremely new. Even though it is a wonderful innovation, we do not want to overburden people. Nevertheless, he can see an upward trend, as in internet shopping, for example. “Slowly but surely there is this trend for Twint to be the digital cash of Switzerland; and it is good it can be now used for paying for parking,” he said.