Kiosk or the App
Here’s something worth knowing: you don’t have to wait for your car park to remove its kiosk before you start paying by app. If there’s a kiosk on site, you can usually still use it, but more and more drivers are choosing not to, even when it’s right there.
Once you’ve paid for parking on your phone a couple of times, going back to queuing at a machine starts to feel like using a phone box when you’ve got a mobile in your pocket. If you’ve never tried it because the kiosk’s always done the job, here’s what you’re actually missing, and why it might be worth switching before your car park decides for you.
Why more drivers are switching first
Kiosks aren’t going anywhere overnight, but the direction of travel is clear. Councils and car park operators across the country are increasingly favouring app-based payment, and plenty of drivers are getting ahead of that shift on their own terms, at sites that still have a kiosk standing right next to the entrance.
It’s not that the kiosk stopped working. It’s that once you’ve paid by app somewhere, you notice everything the kiosk makes you do that the app simply doesn’t: finding the right change, working out which button means what, and hoping it’s not the one day it’s out of order. The kiosk isn’t broken. It’s just no longer the easiest option once you know there’s a better option.
What’s actually better about paying by app
The app isn’t just a different way to do the same thing for most people, it’s genuinely quicker and less hassle from start to finish.
- No exact change, ever. Payment comes straight from the card or method you’ve already set up, so there’s no digging around for coins before you’ve even locked the car.
- A digital receipt automatically, rather than one you have to remember to grab and then lose in your glovebox.
- You can extend your stay from wherever you are. Running late? You don’t have to walk back to the kiosk , you can extend your booking from your phone, even from inside the shop or the meeting you’re actually there for.
- It works the same way every time. A kiosk that’s fine on Tuesday can be faulty by Thursday. The app doesn’t have an “out of order” sign, and it doesn’t care if it’s raining.
- You set it up once. After the first time, paying for parking anywhere Evology Pay is available takes seconds — no re-entering your details, no queuing, no waiting for the person in front to finish.
Put simply: the kiosk gets the job done. The app gets it done faster, with less to think about, and without you having to be standing next to it.
If you’re not sure about apps, you’re not alone
Plenty of people have paid for parking the same way for years and don’t see an obvious reason to change, especially if the kiosk’s never actually let them down. If that’s you, a few things are worth knowing before you write it off.
You don’t need to be particularly tech-savvy to use Evology Pay, it’s built to be about as close to “open the app and pay” as a payment app can be, with clear instructions the first time you use it.
Most people find it takes one go to feel comfortable, and after that it’s genuinely quicker than the kiosk ever was, not just different.
And if there’s a specific reason the app doesn’t work well for how you park — a shared vehicle, someone parking on your behalf, patchy signal at a particular site, that’s useful for us to know.
The app is built to work for as many situations as possible, not just the easiest ones, and feedback on where it doesn’t is how it keeps improving.
What if something goes wrong
It’s a reasonable question: what happens if the app doesn’t work when you need it to? In practice, the app tends to be more reliable than a single physical machine, not less — no one card reader or coin mechanism can jam or run out of paper and take the whole payment option with it. If you do run into a problem, support is there to help, rather than leaving you to work it out alone in a car park.
You can download the Evology Parking App on Apple or Android to get started today.
Don’t forget that wherever you’re headed, it pays to plan ahead.
Download the Evology Parking app today and take care of your parking before you even set off.
