Flowbird parking 4+

Easy & seems safe

I didn’t love when my favorite park started implementing paid parking. Then I would have to pay via text or this new app. Another app? Ugh. But I loved this park so much and I reluctantly began using it. I like how easy it is to use and I like that I can set the time reminder. I like that our parking allows the first 30 min free, and that is easy to do with the app. I like that it keeps my settings and I don’t have to do a lot to just hop on, chose my location (easy enough) and start my time.
It seems safe (personal info kept private, I mean) and I haven’t gotten emails and texts, so I like that it doesn’t intrude on my life in other ways.
I do love this park and I don’t mind supporting it, so I’m glad they chose an app that seems to do a great job and make it easy to use.

Not as good as other apps

Our city was using woosh and it was worth the surcharge. Flowbird needs some help. It’s difficult to input your vehicles. If you have multiple vehicles it’s almost impossible to choose how to park. Every parking transaction wants to use my truck as it’s the default. I Choose a different vehicle and complete the transaction but get a receipt for my truck? I try again to choose my Harley and again it gives me a receipt for my truck? Also several attempts to park resulted in a system “error “ when the error was that our city was not charging for parking after a certain time frame?

Developer Response ,

Thank you for your feedback. We do apologize for the troubles. On the "Park Here" screen the default plates appears in the right hand upper corner. If you wish to select a different plate you must simply click on the plate. Now you can select the plate you wish to use. In the future you may click on My Account, click on Contact Us and Click on Email Us or Call Support. One of our customer support agents will be happy to assist you . You may certainly email us at us-mobileapp-support@flowbird.group for further questions.

Frustrationbird more likely

The map has a mind of its own, moving in and out presumably to help you, it doesn’t and shouldn’t. Ever.

The alternative, a list of zones/spaces went blank after one use, never to return.

Using the map and trying to home in on the correct zone/space combination in my city proved to be impossible as no combination worked.

This, along with not being able to pre-enter important information before the first transaction means that you will probably have to figure all of this out in real time, like say, when the enforcement officer is coming towards you pad in hand and a bus has you boxed in.

I was eventually able to pay for a spot ( from the comfort of my living room ) using the aforementioned one time use only list. At least all my info is saved now.

There are 5 options of zones for my city and no clear indication of where they start and stop. I shouldn’t even have to know zones exist, or any other implementation details for that matter, like what size bolts they use to attach meters to the sidewalk. Zones? Why?

The whole thing feels like someone did the best they could to bridge the gap between cities who don’t want to spend a penny to update their parking infrastructure and an apathetic populace who has long since accepted that the U in UX hasn’t got a thing to do with Us.

We need a better solution than this.