Instead of the first parking fine, merely a warning

The aim of the parking policy is not to sanction minor, unintentional mistakes, but to provide a functional, fair and effective parking regulation system. Therefore, the leadership of the capital city submitted a proposal to the February council to change the first fine for unpaid parking fees in the PAAS for the previous 12 months to a mere warning. The proposal received unanimous support from the city councillors; thus, starting on 1 April, instead of a fine, the “offender” will only receive a warning about the violation of the rules and a recommendation on how to avoid it in the future.

Likewise, if the validity of a car owner’s six-month or annual resident or subscriber parking card ended in the previous seven days, and after the recording of an offence, that person purchases this card again within the next seven days, then he or she will be entitled to have the fine waived. Thousands of life situations cannot be resolved individually, but the proposed measure will create space for “pain-free” awareness of the occasional mistake without jeopardising the functioning of the system.

At the same time, the change affects other common situations when an honest paying resident is caught by an inspector shortly after a parking ticket expires. Already today, if invalid parking is caught by an inspector and the system later shows that a ticket was purchased within a few minutes, the fine will not be issued. This will now also apply in the reverse direction. If an inspector issues a parking ticket within a few minutes after the expiration of a valid ticket before leaving with the car or before paying for another ticket, the fine will also be waived.

Parking tip

The city is also introducing a new feature within the PAAS parking application. After registering in the application, drivers can also choose to receive SMS or email notifications for incorrect parking in PAAS zones, including email notifications about possible fines or waivers of fines. These SMS or email notifications will gradually replace the stickers on cars that currently inform drivers that they have probably parked incorrectly. During the transition period, both stickers and notifications will be used, so that everyone has sufficient time to register for the new notification system. The introduction of this new feature is also associated with the deployment of new scanning vehicles, which will improve parking control and secure more accessible parking for residents. The application further offers a very practical early termination of parking. So that the person parking does not have to constantly monitor the validity of the ticket, all they have to do is select a longer parking time in the application. If they finish their business earlier and no longer need to park in a paid space, they can simply terminate the parking ticket in the app early. They then only pay the amount for the time actually parked (with a minimum of 15 minutes).

Lower fines on public transport

From 1 April, new and lower fines will also apply to Bratislava’s public transport, since the automatic mechanism has gradually increased the fine to 120 euros, which was one of the highest rates compared to similar cities. The municipality has therefore proposed a fair reduction of this rate. The new fine for travelling without a valid travel ticket will be €79 if paid on the spot, €89 if paid within two weeks, or €99 if paid later. At the same time, it will still be possible to apply a discount on the fine, up to 100%, if the fine is received by a passenger who previously had a tram ticket, but its validity expired within two weeks before the fine being issued (if it was earlier or the person did not have a tram ticket, the maximum discount remains 80% when purchasing an annual subscription ticket).