Cashless car parking is to be trialled at Gloucester Green from 24 January.

It marks the start of the next stage of the City Council’s going cashless initiative and is the first step towards going cashless at all of the City’s car parks.

Work has been ongoing to eradicate cash payment across all council services since February 2021 after the Council approved the move.

The city along with ODS will conduct the trial at Gloucester Green for six months.

The facility for cash payments will be removed but payment at the machines can be made using cards.

Pay-by-phone provider RingGo or via Hozah, the automatic payment provider, remain available.

The council said the trial will allow it to monitor customers’ reactions while a change to a cashless system across all car park sites would see an annual saving of around £12,000.

Cllr Tom Hayes, cabinet member for Green Transport and Zero Carbon Oxford, said: “More and more services are becoming available only through cashless systems. Already 93 per cent of payments at our Gloucester Green car park are cashless.

"The vast majority of users are paying for parking by card at the pay machine, our pay by phone provider RingGo, or through Hozah the automatic payment provider.

“Overall we have seen an increase in cashless payment throughout the pandemic as it is a convenient and quick way to pay. Additionally, contactless payments have been shown to reduce virus transmission, though non-contactless card payment will remain available.

“For the council this represents a way to reduce administrative costs across our car parks – a welcome factor at a time when our finances are stretched to the limit.”

The trial will not affect car parking run by other operators, for example at the Westgate or the County Council’s on-street parking places.

The City Council will install new signage at Gloucester Green car park and other nearby car parks that retain cash payments are available.

Oxford City Council made £1,682,863 from its city centre car parks in 2021, according to a Freedom of Information request.

There were 1,031 recorded faults with pay and display machines.

A spokesperson said: “This does not represent machines that are necessarily out of service, but is the number of faults attended to over the period and will include machines that are not out of service and still functioning for the customer.

"Out of about 546,830 transactions made in 2021 (1 Jan to 30 Nov) we recorded 1,031 faults. This equates to 0.18 per cent.

"There is always more than one machine at each car park, providing an alternative machine that can be used in the event a machine does go out of service."

For more information on Oxford City Council’s plans for going cashless visit www.oxford.gov.uk/cashless