The cashless parking' company advises people to appeal if they received PCNs

The RingGo 'cashless parking' system crash which affected several boroughs in London, caused chaos and confusion in Chiswick during the day.

Hundreds of residents were unsure whether they would be penalised for parking during the hours the system was out of operation.

Hounslow Council said that people were still able to pay by using the RingGo telephone number even if the website and App were not working.

We have asked Hounslow Council what advice was given to traffic wardens about enforcement and whether any tickets issued would be cancelled- we await a response.

RingGo advised people who received PCNs to start the appeal process and said that while they could not intervene directly with envorcement, "if the RingGo service was temporarily out of service, we can support your appeal with confirmation of the times during which service was affected and your attempts to pay."

Hounslow Council has plans to phase out all Pay & Display machines on-street and in Council car parks and move to cashless parking in future. The trouble with the RingGo system today in which neither the website or the App were working, highlights the potential risk of a sole reliance on the RingGo system, with no contingency in place if it ceases to operate.

Ealing Council's Parking Department appeared to take a conciliatory tone to the crisis and said on Twitter -"Due to an on-going RingGo Issue customers are experiencing issues with the service. The council are not enforcing in the affected areas.

"RingGo are working to rectify the situation. Any parking tickets issued will be reviewed and due regard given to the lack of service"

Westminster Council, which controls central London parking, suspended restrictions while RingGo attempted to fix the system.

Hounslow Council issued this statement on Twitter this afternoon: "Today, 23 November 2016, we were made aware of issues with the RingGo system affecting boroughs across the capital. We have been informed that the smartphone application and the website for RingGo are both still having problems. Motorists are reminded that they can still pay via telephone on 0203 046 0010 until the problem with the application and website have been fixed."

Chaos erupted across the UK today  when the most widely used parking payment app's service was offline for more than five hours. RingGo Parking, along with an app called PayByPhone, covers some 85 per cent of cashless parking locations in the UK, including 112 local authorities across the country.  

RingGo issued the following advice on its website: "If you were unable to pay with RingGo because the service was temporarily unavailable and subsequently received a parking charge notice, please appeal to the parking enforcement operator directly, following the process on the reverse of the PCN.

"In your appeal, we suggest you provide:
The time and date you attempted to use RingGo
What channel(s) you tried to use
Your vehicle registration number
The RingGo location where you were trying to park

"Unfortunately the enforcement operator will not allow us to intervene with any aspect of the appeal process, as it is their strict policy that customers contact them directly in writing.  They issue the fines and consequently are the only ones who can cancel them.

"However, the Operator can request information from us about your RingGo account.  So if the RingGo service was temporarily out of service, we can support your appeal with confirmation of the times during which service was affected and your attempts to pay."

November 23, 2016