Adelaide City Council’s $3m smart-parking app used by just 26 people to buy extra time

The Adelaide City Council spent $3m on a new smart-parking app — but just a handful of people have actually used its main function.

Only 26 people have used a smark parking app that cost Adelaide City Council $3m to build. Picture: Tricia Watkinson.

Fewer than 30 motorists have used an Australian-first mobile app to buy an extra 15 minutes of parking in the CBD since the $3 million project was launched in March.

Adelaide City Council figures showed just 26 people used the Park Adelaide app’s one-off ‘Extend Stay’ function to purchase extra time to avoid a parking fine.

Eleven motorists who used the application have been issued an expiation for exceeding their stay.

The Park Adelaide app, launched on March 27, has so far had 4357 downloads, meaning fewer than 1 per cent of people had used the extra-time function.

Users can also use the app to search and pay for parking, remotely top up their payment and receive an alert when their time is about to expire.

Of the 4357 downloads, 2775 of these have registered to use the payment options, the other 1582 have used the guest login to locate available parking spaces.

An Adelaide City Council spokeswoman said staff had been happy with the smart-parking technology rollout.

“Council is pleased that the usage of the app has been greater than expected, and greater than other cities have experienced in the first few weeks when implementing similar technology,” she said.

“We hope to see this continue to grow as customers become more familiar with the technology.”

The council installed 2800 sensors across the city that provide accurate, real-time information about parking availability and time limits. The app and the sensors cost $3 million.

The one-off 15 minute ‘Extend Stay’ beyond the maximum time allowed costs $5.50 — based on 10 per cent of a $51 parking fine.

Adelaide City Council Deputy Lord Mayor Houssam Abiad expected more growth over time.

He was pleased more than 4000 people had downloaded the app so far.

“It takes a bit of time for the roll-out to happen and for people to become comfortable with the app and how they use it,” Mr Abiad said. “But the app works really well.

“I am actually grateful not a lot of people are extending because the whole purpose of on-street parking is to create that turnover, so the fact people are not extending … is a good sign.”