APCOA Connect – Parking 4+

Used for first time in Leeds Station CP. Downloaded app and loaded credit card details in advance - recommended. Plenty of charging stations (covered) in multi storey car park. Two glitches. Needed to leave car parked for 24 hours but only needed a charge for 4 hours. Only option on App was to “Pay & Leave”. Couldn’t stop charge and move car to another area! Attendant recommended leaving it plugged in till I was ready to leave since there were a lot of unoccupied chargers, which I did. Other glitch was on the charger - wouldn’t release my cable at either end despite me unlocking car several times. Phoned helpline and they sorted after a few minutes. Charging costs only come up when you start a charge! Had to use ZapMap to get an indication before I arrived at CP. Reasonable rate at moment 34p KWH.

I was frustrated this morning to find my local train station car park had changed from Saba to APCOA Connect, so I had to set up another parking app and account. Once done and the car details in I was frustrated to find no option for Apple Pay, so I had to enter and store my card details. I went to put in my Curve card details so I could switch between cards as I use a personal card for leisure and a work card for business travel. When filling in the expiry date the UI/UX is so poor that the month column only shows the remaining months of the year, so as we are in October and my expiry is March, you have to counter intuitively set the year column and then go back to the month column. When I attempted to save my Curve card details the app wouldn’t accept them after multiple attempts. So I entered a personal card details and thought I would also add my work card details. I then found the app will only allow you to store 1 cards details 🤦‍♂️, hence my curve card would have been perfect. I will have to edit the card details each time dependant on the type of trip. Not impressed.

Having enjoyed a reasonably reliable app based system from Saba, it’s early days as to how this new offer works.

I think the interface and functionality is improved - the “bu the same again” and the link to Apple Pay is much better.

However systems were down one morning this week and I think it would be a good idea since they have my details (car reg and phone number) if they texted me saying they will not ticket my car and when the system is operating again. Feet of a ticket meant trying half a dozen times that morning until around 11am it was back up. The idea (given they have the data) that I print off email correspondence (that I had to create with their customer service) in a submission of defence if I did get a ticket is a wrongun… and surely they can do better..