Bratislava updates its PAAS city-wide residential parking policy. (source: SME - Marko Erd)
Payment of parking fees in the city-wide Bratislava Parking Assistant System (PAAS) scheme by text messages will be launched at the turn of May and June, Bratislava’s spokesman Peter Bubla told the TASR newswire. The service will be provided by Mediatex, winner of a tender. A total of three companies enrolled.
“Simply send an SMS with the code of the parking section, the vehicle registration number, and the number of hours of parking (example: 2035 XX123XX 1) to the number 2200,” said Bubla. The cost of parking via SMS includes fees charged by operators, he added.
This payment method will extend the range of possible payments paths for parking fees in the scheme. Originally the municipality did not plan to introduce this method as it considered it too complicated and expensive within the PAAS scheme. But as locals and visitors are used to this payment method from other Slovak and European cities, it resolved to add it to the existing methods.
The payment of the parking fees by text messages (SMS) was enabled by a regulation approved by the Bratislava city council at the end of May last year.
Mobile parking apps are the most frequent form of payment of parking fees in Bratislava, with 79 percent of fees paid in April. A further 20 percent were paid via parking meters, with the remaining share paid at contracted outlets and assistants.
The city has also launched its own mobile app PAAS. With the help of the application it is possible to extend, but also to terminate the selected parking tickets early.
The Bratislava Parking Assistant System, which the Bratislava municipality describes as one of the biggest reforms in the capital city, was launched in the first three zones at the beginning of 2022. The system is gradually being expanded by the city.
