The collection at parking meters in Madrid reached a new ceiling in 2023, when revenues reached 72,540,397.25 euros, 5.8% more than in 2022. The expansion of the Regulated Parking Service (SER) outside the M-30 has a lot to do with this increase, since in the last two years several neighborhoods of Ciudad Lineal, Latina, Carabanchel or, a few days ago, Usera have joined the system.
The majority of what the Madrid City Council receives through parking meters comes from visitor tickets, which were 58.3 million in 2022 and reached 61 last year, according to the municipal open data tool consulted by this newspaper. They represent almost 85% of the total and payments are very unequal depending on the areas, as we will see later.
To these collection figures must be added what the Madrid City Council charges traders to park their vans or cars in areas regulated by parking meters. In this case, the municipal figures do not distinguish between the two available rates (five and eight hours per day), so an average between the two has been established to calculate the total amount.
Until last December, 13,792 permits had been granted to park at the Regulated Parking Service in spaces reserved for traders, which would add an average of 6,512,582 euros per year to municipal revenue.
Finally, there are the residents, who pay €24.60 per year (they can also opt for the monthly option, with payments of €2.05 per month). As of December 31, 202,892 people have applied for this annual permit for their vehicle in Madrid, so the total collected through this means amounts to €4,991,143.20. They represent 6.9% of the total income of the SER, although they occupy the largest surface area on the streets of Madrid.
These are general figures, but to understand where the majority of euros that go into municipal coffers for street parking come from, we need to go into detail by district, or even by neighborhood. The data on the number of fines issued show that the parking meters located in the northern neighborhoods collect much more than those in the south and that, among them, the largest is the one in Chamartín.
The richest neighborhood in Madrid is also the one where visitors leave the most euros to park on the street. Specifically, almost 12.5 million in almost all its neighborhoods (the northern part of Castile does not have blue or green zones), some distance from Chamberí, the second on the list (8.8 million) and Salamanca (8.5 million).
On the other side of the list are Centro, Latina and Carabanchel, as these are the neighborhoods with the fewest blue squares.
By neighborhood, the highest number of parking tickets is issued in El Viso (Chamartín), with more than three million tickets per year, followed by Nueva España and Hispanoamérica, all located in the same neighborhood. Next come the areas of Vallehermoso (Chamberí), Cuatro Caminos (Tetuán) and Guindalera (Salamanca).
At the end of the list are the newly implemented areas, beyond the M-30, as well as the neighborhoods of the Centro district, where since the implementation of Madrid Central the blue zone has disappeared and it is only possible to park in the green zone, the more expensive it is and the less time.
Madrid’s Regulated Parking Service operates through blue (visitors), green (residents) and orange (businesses) zones in certain areas of the city where demand for on-street parking is high. Both residents and business owners can obtain passes to use their spaces, while visitors must pay a fee, subsidised according to their vehicle’s pollutant emissions.
Three years ago, the Mobility Zone undertook a policy of extending the SER to peripheral districts, located beyond the M-30, where residents have warned of the difficulties in parking due to the “border effect”, which occurs when drivers from other areas of the city try to park as close as possible to areas regulated by parking meters.
The latest extension of the SER took place ten days ago in Usera. Most of the Moscardó neighborhood entered the system after its residents gave the green light to the municipal proposal that parking on their streets would be regulated by parking meters. In December, two other neighborhoods in this southern district (Almendrales and Pradolongo) will see the parking meters turn on after following the same process.
