Twint parking payment

Transportation, Travel and Trips
1

I needed to park down in Monthey today, at a surface parking I’ve used a number of times, and recently have always used Twint to pay for it. It’s ticketless, one of those where you would normally go to the payment machine, type in your number and enter the desired length of time, then put coins in the slot. No barrier, no number plate recognition or anything like that.

So anyway. today I had a dental appointment, wasn’t quite sure how long it would be, put in 40 minutes and the Twint app tells me it’s succeeded, shows me the end time.

So once I get to the dentist, only a couple of minutes walk away, they are running a little late, so I go into the app and look at the remaining time, and see that it shows me I can cancel the payment, doesn’t seem to allow me to modify it, but cos it’s still within ten minutes (or whatever the limit might be) it shows me a full refund if I cancel.

So that’s all OK, my 70 cents is refunded, then I put in the expected new finish time, shows me 70 cents again, so OK, done.

What I want to know is this: what would have happened if the wardens had come along in the first ten minutes before I cancelled it, or indeed if they had done so in the minute or so between me cancelling it and doing the second transaction? (I did once get a ticket there pre-Twint when my time had expired, so I know they do check),

And would it be possible (just in theory, cos I’m sure not going to bother for just a few cents) to extend the parking time indefinitely by repeating the process, enter time, pay, wait ten minutes, cancel and repeat?

2

Sorry to answer a question with another question, but previously what would the wardens have done if they controlled you car between the time you arrived and the time you got to the machine, entering your plaque no and inserted your coins?

I don’t know either but I have never heard anyone complain about being done. Perhaps if you take your ticket and their ticket to the police and if it’s within a reasonable time they cancel the fine.

3

That happened to me last year at a car park in Payerne. It was very busy and there was a queue at the pay machine so when I got back to my car after paying there was a traffic warden in the process of writing a ticket.
He checked on his machine and could see when I had bought the ticket and said he’d hopefully cancelled the fine but if I received one I should contest it and explain what happened.
I never received anything.

4

Parkingpay?

No fuss, no queues, no machines, no coins…

5

Err yes, that’s what Twint uses, except it’s all done within the Twint app, no registration needed.

6

No walking to any meter though, I pay for the parking before I even get out of the car.

7

No walking to any meter with Twint either.

I was just using the meter to describe the type of car park.

8

Sorry didn’t understand your question.

9

A fine? I guess this is a job where they input the plates and the software tells paid/not paid and no further details.

I would bet revealing details like “arrived 10 mins or 2 hours ago” to the person checking the validity of parking does not comply with customer data protection.

10

Yes. Obviously in those first ten minutes it would have shown as paid, then there would have been a short window in which it would not have shown as paid, so only if they had come along in that time, probably less than a minute between cancel and reissue, would I have been penalised.

So I don’t think I’ll be using this a a deliberate strategy in the future to save a few cents.

11

Er-hem! To save a few rappen you clock up CHF0.70?

What did your dentist visit cost? I’d have happily put in CHF2.- for a couple of hours of peace of mind…

2 Likes
12

I don’t want to sound entitled, but it could be nice not needing at least 3 different apps for parking (Twint for most, PayByPhone for Vaud, SBB P+R for train station parking).

13

No, This was just a side effect of wanting to avoid a 20 franc fine for overstaying on the initial time, just lead me to discover this little loophole.

14

At some Vaud parking places the Paybyphone app won’t accept an extension or a second payment for the same spot within a certain period of time.

15

The Twint/parkingpay one sounds better in that respect then. It’s not tied to a specific parking spot either, just the car number.