SMART PARKING IN DOWNTOWN, CAIRO

An antidote to the parking problems in Cairo as I discovered on my last vist to downtown. While we were parked near the Groppi café, a man wearing the SAYDO company overalls approached us and explained how the parking cards issued by SAYDO worked. You buy a plastic “smart” card for LE 27 –this gives you a credit of LE 22 and LE 5 is towards insurance and sales tax. With this card, you can park your car in the downtown area (i.e the area in and around the Tahrir Square and the Talaat Harb square), in the Saydo designated zones. When you arrive, you punch in your card in the parking metres installed by SAYDO-this will activate the road spikes. Your car is now parked between the kerb and the spikes-so when you want to leave, you just punch in your card again-see the amount that you have been charged for the duration of your parking, the spikes come down and you drive away!. Differential rates are charged depending on the time of parking-the highest rates applicable between 7.00 a.m and 4.00 p.m.

Men wearing overalls with the Saydo logo are on hand to help you with the parking. Once you have exhausted the limit on your parking card, you can either return the card and get back the LE 5 that you had paid as deposit or buy a new card for LE 22.

The drawback as I see it is that you are charged for the entire hour even if you are parked for only 10 minutes! And on a bad day, despite having the smart card, you maybe cruising around for a parking spot because all the designated spaces are full.