Majority of new parking meters accepting cards
JUST over half of the new Pay and Display ticket machines installed around the town accept credit and debit cards.
The 34 new machines which take cards brought in ¤122,000 in November, a 5 per cent increase on the same month in 2017.
Just 6 per cent of that amount was paid by card, revealing that the vast majority of motorists still pay for parking with coins.
Sinn Féin Councillor Chris MacManus had asked the Council at last Monday’s meeting of Sligo Municipal District how many of the new parking meters in the town did not accept cards such as tap and chip and pin etc.
Head of Finance Marie Whelan told Cllr MacManus that 60 new Pay and Display machines were installed last October.
“92 per cent of annual parking revenue is generated at these 34 locations meaning that the vast majority of transactions are catered for by a car payment option,” she told the meeting.
She said it would be too expensive to install card payment facilities at the other 26 machines because they are at quieter locations and bring in only 8 per cent of the revenue.
Cllr Hubert Keaney said he reluctantly brought up the issue of Parking Tag payment options (pay by text/phone/online) as two constituents felt they had paid this way but were ticketed.
Marie Whelan accepted there were “technical problems” they were looking at.
Cllr Keaney also said there were “sensitivities” around the prominence of the traffic wardens around town: “We don’t want to give the impression we’re pouncing on people. There are sensitivities we need to be aware of,” he added.