A day pass is not an option you tap in the app but a property of the zone. The municipality decides whether a zone works with a day rate; you cannot opt in or out. Open such a zone in the app and it says so in as many words: "This is a day card zone. Once you start parking, you pay a fixed day rate." However long you stay after that, the amount does not change.
How to recognise a day-pass zone
- Tap the zone on the map or find it through Search for a parking area.
- On the map, look for a Day pass badge on the zone.
- Open the Parking zone screen. In a day-pass zone the app says: "This is a day card zone. Once you start parking, you pay a fixed day rate."
- Check under Rates which amount applies today.
Without that message it is an ordinary paid zone and you pay for the time you stay. See How the parking rate is set.
What a fixed day rate means
In a day-pass zone there is nothing to work out and nothing to choose: the amount the app shows for the zone is what you pay that day. Stay twenty minutes and you pay the same as someone who stays all day. How long the day pass runs and what it costs is set by the municipality; you find it under Rates in the app, and Previous day and Next day page through the rates for the days around it.
Starting and stopping in a day-pass zone
Starting works the same as in any other zone: Start action is at the bottom of the screen. Here too you set an end time; that is required for every parking session. That end time decides how long your plate stays registered; it does not change the day rate.
If you drive off earlier, still stop the session with Stop action on the map or Stop on the session. You get no part of the day rate back, because that is what a fixed price means, but your plate is then not left registered unnecessarily.
Service fee and maximum duration
A day-pass zone is one parking session too, so you pay the € 0.29 service fee once. You see it back on the Activity under Total cost, where the total is followed by "incl. € 0.29 service fee". See The SimplePark service fee.
A day rate says nothing about the maximum parking duration: the municipality sets that separately. If the zone leaves you half an hour or less from now, there is nothing left to choose and the app says End time is fixed.