When should your visitors pay for parking?

One of the first things a visitor does when they arrive on a car park is check when they have to pay for their parking.

Some sites require a user to pay in advance, while others use ANPR to track the length of stay and allow users to pay for the time they’ve been on site as they leave.

The best car parks provide visitors with a degree of flexibility over how they manage their parking, but is it best to pay on arrival or exit?

Millennial businessman using ticketing machine and paying contactless

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Decide on arrival or pay at the end?

The first thing any visitor to a paid parking site should do is look at how they are being asked to pay for their parking. This can have a deciding impact on how they plan out their trip.

If they need to pay in advance, such as on an older style pay and display car park, this might mean gauging how long they need for their stay or even overcompensating and overpaying to ensure their parking is covered.

Paying as they leave is more accurate and removes the pressure from someone’s stay at a location. If your visitors are paying on exit, they aren’t constantly watching the clock or restricting what they can do in order to be back at the car for a specific time. If they are visiting a city or large shopping area; this can benefit nearby businesses as the extra flexibility means people spend more time on-site, increasing the likelihood of a sale.

A more flexible approach

When it comes to the time to pay for parking, there are solutions that car parks can offer that make life easier for their visitors.

A service like pre-booking is a powerful asset, letting motorists find, book, and pay for their parking as a part of their initial trip planning.

When it comes to organising a day trip or planning an itinerary, this can be a huge help and avoids a lot of the second-guessing and time concerns that come with paying on arrival.

Paying using an online or mobile portal can even give motorists the ability to extend their stay. For example, if someone drives into a city to meet someone for lunch, then decides they want to go out that evening and stay over. They can jump on their parking app, extend their stay, and not worry about their car until the morning.

The importance of dynamic parking

The flexibility in payment options is important, it allows people to tailor their parking to the payment option they are most comfortable with whilst also providing helpful alternatives in a difficult situation.

Imagine a visitor to your car park. They arrive on site and decide to pay when they leave. When that time comes, they discover the payment machine is out of order. Having other options elsewhere, such as being able to pay by phone or online, means you don’t lose out on the revenue your paid parking can generate, and you eliminate the stress the visitor might have worrying they will receive a parking charge when they leave without paying.

Providing those different options helps support visitors in difficult situations. For instance, if someone returns to their car and realises they’ve lost their wallet. A parking charge on top of that makes a bad day even worse. There are tools, such as our online payment portal, that allows motorists to pay for their parking up to 24 hours later, allowing a driver to delay payment until a better time.

Transforming how your visitors interact with your car park

Paid parking needs to be tailored to the individuals using your car park. At Parkingeye, we provide an unparalleled range of payment options allowing you to provide a range of choices to guests, staff and visitors. This allows you to maximise the revenue potential of your site and boost the performance of your car park.

To find out more about how we can help your car park provide greater choice and deliver the best possible results for your business, get in touch.