Disc Parking - Procedure

Procedure

German sign combination; the lower sign indicates disc parking with two-hour limit

Upon arrival at a parking lot requiring parking disc, the parking disc is set and put on display behind the front windshield. The disc has a thumb wheel (or knurling wheel) at the upper side that makes the clock face turn around its center point, allowing it to show different clock times. The standard parking clock can show a full twelve hours, with additional marks for each half-hour. The time to be set is rounded up from the actual arrival time, for example a 10:00:01 arrival would be set to 10:30, while a 10:29:59 arrival would also be set to 10:30. The legal requirements are that "parking is allowed when the vehicle shows a parking disc that is easily readable from the outside and whose clockhand points to the mark of the half hour that follows the time of arrival".

The latest departure time is calculated from the displayed arrival time on the parking disc based on the indicated maximum parking time. For example, if the parking disc was set to 10:30 and the parking sign indicated a one hour maximum parking time, then free parking would end at 11:30. The system is intentionally set up in a way that only full and half hours are used to indicate arrival and departure. Arriving at 10:02 in a parking disc zone of one hour maximum parking time invokes a departure time of 11:30, and hence an effective time interval of eighty-eight minutes for free parking after arrival. In short, if the parking sign shows a limit of one hour maximum parking time, then the effective maximum parking time is sixty-one to ninety minutes because the difference to the next half hour is added.