Government to promote take-up of National Parking Platform

New statutory guidance will form part of Better Connected approach

Minsters are set to tell more councils to use the 'one-stop-shop' parking app, aiming to more than double the number of councils using it to take the stress out of parking cars.

The government is to call on local authorities in England to join the National Parking Platform (NPP), a service that enables drivers to use an app of their choice when paying for parking. The DfT will publish statutory guidance advising councils to adopt the NPP.

Councils will also be tasked with seeing how the platform can work harder, to cover road tolls and EV charging, so drivers can sort all their on-road payments in one place.

The platform was developed by the UK government and lets drivers pay for parking using any approved app at participating council car parks, ending the need to download a different app every time they park somewhere new.

The platform allows drivers to pay for parking using any one of six currently approved apps in parking areas run by participating councils. 

Fifteen local authorities have so far signed up, with more in the pipeline. The parking platform has seen 10 million transactions since May 2025.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander said “Parking shouldn’t be a faff. The fact that this platform has already handled more than 10 million transactions shows just how much people value a simpler, more straightforward way to pay.

“Now we want this platform to work harder for drivers in England. The way we drive is changing and so should the technology, which is why our Better Connected strategy will encourage more local councils to adopt the parking platform and then look to expand it beyond, to things like electric vehicle charging and paying tolls.”

The Better Connected strategy, to be published on Thursday, will set out the government’s broader ambitions for integrating road, bus, rail and tram travel across England.

The National Parking Platform was developed by the government before being handed to a consortium that is run on a not-for-profit basis. The board members include representatives from the British Parking Association, participating local authorities and app providers such as JustPark, PayByPhone and RingGo.

The consortium delivers the service, with the government retaining oversight by monitoring the sector’s compliance with agreed terms.

Rod Dennis, senior policy officer at the RAC, said the roll-out had the potential to simplify an increasingly fragmented system. “Paying to park a car should be one of the simplest tasks any driver does, but with a plethora of different mobile parking payment apps now in existence things have got a little more complicated.

“The roll-out of the National Parking Platform has the potential to change that, giving drivers the chance to use a single app of their choice. We now need as many operators as possible to join the scheme to make parking easier for everyone.”

Parking payment confusion is one of the reasons drivers end up hit with fines they didn't see coming, and the platform is designed to fix that.

RAC research published in October 2025 found that nearly three-quarters of drivers – 73% – who had used a mobile app to pay for parking in the previous 12 months experienced difficulties. Poor mobile signal was the most common complaint, cited by 70% of those affected, followed by apps failing to recognise the correct car park and apps crashing.

The RAC found that 13% of respondents could not work out how to use a parking app. Of the respondents over 75, this figure was 26%. 

Nearly two-thirds drivers who use mobile apps to pay for parking have at least two installed on their phones, the RAC found, while around one in ten have four or more.

Around half of those surveyed said they preferred to pay by card or contactless payment on their phones.