I use this app to approve visitor parking when out of town guests are staying at my place. However there are several annoying features that make it frustrating to use:
1) it is not intuitive. For example, for overnight guest parking you have to select “multi-day” and then set the recurrence to “daily” in order to have different start and end dates for overnight guests. This has confused every single guest that has tried to use the app to send me a parking permit request.
2) you cannot print permits from the app. It has a button to print, but the PDF it generates is a blank page. After approving in the app, you still have to log into the same account on a computer to be able to generate a pdf with the actual permit details on it.
3) you cannot have multiple accounts that can approve the permit for a single house. This can be extremely inconvenient for housemates or spouses who are not in the same place when coordinate plans with guests.
No way to “schedule a vehicle”. When adding a vehicle, only times can be selected, not dates. Then the vehicle is NOT added to the permit. Also, no way to print an active permit. It states “permit not available”.
Getting a paper permit allowed visitors to park for two weeks. This app requires me to renew visitor passes every day. DDOT website states residents can get a permit using the app. This is incorrect. This app only works for visitors. There is no clear way to renew or obtain the RPP (DC residential parking permit). Minor: when clicking on messages, you can see the beginning of the message but there is no way to open the message to read the whole thing.
I can’t even get past the registration page as it doesn’t allow my address within the city. Are raccoons running this thing?
Without question one of the most nonsensical and useless apps I have ever used. How many tax dollars went into producing this trash? This is a national travesty. Who approved this?
Everyone involved with this should be shamed, embarrassed, and prohibited from doing anything ever again.
Exhibit A of DC government dysfunction. Extremely confusing, frustrating, non-intuitive, difficult to navigate, etc. Simple task, getting a visitor parking permit, cannot be done on app. Desktop hardly better. Printing requirement, insane, cannot be done at police station. System broken. DDOT 24/7 number=vacant. Just total utter breakdown at every possible level. Our tax dollars at work.
This is a terrible app. Needlessly complicated for both host and visitor. Wish we could still just go to the police station and pick one up.
To describe this app as illogical would be a disservice. It simply does not function by any rational rules. The separate instruction found in the web show screen shots that do not confirm to the screens shown by this abomination of some incompetent creator’s fantasy. It should be used only as an example of bad development work.
Confusing interface with too many steps to approve a visitor parking pass. And worst of all, the print pass function does not work. You have to go to the web site to print the pass. Sort of defeats the point of a mobile app.
This app used to work really well. But then there were some updates and it can no longer generate a permit to print when using an iPhone. You can schedule a vehicle, which is nice. But when you go to print the permit, the app states “Printing….please wait, this could take a while” and then the dialogue box disappears without letting you see the actual permit to print. If you need to print the permit, you need to go to the website on your web browser and print from that. Also, the app tries to use FaceID but then fails, requiring you to manually input your password every time. It’s a crappy app.
We tend to have low expectations when it comes to government-related apps, but DDOT has figured this one out. With so many changes during the pandemic to rules about parking enforcement of course drivers and residents have every right to be frustrated but this app provides a streamlined and intuitive way to get parking permits (for visitors, contractors, cleaners etc). I had been using the desktop-based portal and was pleasantly surprised to see that all my past work (existing permits, info) was easily accessible in the app.
Well done DDOT!
(Just please keep the app fresh and bug-free!)
woahhlaura
iPhone App Reviewer JM
Tetzen
FckLoggingIn
NetzdotCom
Kmyers215
No way DC
NickD4e
EssssMH
Fosterp92
