Parking in Europe's densest cities is not just inconvenient. For millions of daily drivers, it is a genuine time tax. The street layouts predate the car. Residents outnumber bays by ratios that would seem impossible in a planned city. And yet the supply to fix it is there, hiding behind gates and courtyard walls. Here are the five cities where the gap is widest, and what is actually happening about it.
Bucharest: fastest-growing car ownership, slowest infrastructure
Bucharest registered roughly 1.3 million vehicles in 2015. By 2024 that number had climbed past 1.8 million, a 40% rise in under a decade. The city's communist-era residential blocks were built when private car ownership was rare, so courtyards designed for bicycle storage are now packed with cars, and sidewalks serve as overflow lots. According to figures on the Spot Run Bucharest page, 43% of drivers in the city spend between 30 and 60 minutes searching for a single parking spot. That is not a bad day. That is Tuesday.
The gap is not a shortage of physical space. Thousands of underground bays and residential courtyards sit empty every day while their owners are at work, on holiday, or simply no longer driving. The supply exists. It has no address.
Rome: 22 vehicles for every public stall
Rome's historic centre was planned across two thousand years before the automobile arrived. The result is a city with ZTL restricted zones covering much of the centre, blue-stripe paid parking that fills by 8am, and private garage rates running from €200 to €400 per month. The market research behind Spot Run found approximately 22 vehicles for every public parking stall in Rome, with around 2.3 million registered vehicles and roughly 106,000 public stalls. Private bays throughout Prati, Parioli, and Trastevere sit empty during the day when residents are at work, and for the whole of August when the city empties on holiday. Drivers circling those same streets have no way to see them. Read more on why parking in Rome costs what it does.
Paris: the city that is actively removing spaces
Paris had roughly 700,000 on-street spaces in 2001. The city has removed more than 50,000 of them since 2020 and has no plans to stop. The Zone à Faibles Emissions now covers the entire city and several surrounding communes, banning older-emissions vehicles on weekdays. Central garage contracts run from €350 to €500 per month. A 2023 study found Parisians spend an average of 22 minutes per trip searching for street parking, rising to 34 minutes in the first six arrondissements. The policy direction is set: fewer street spots, stricter access rules, higher garage prices. Drivers who still need a car are squeezed from every side. More on what Paris's parking policy means in practice.
London: the most expensive parking in Europe
According to iSelect's parking pain index, London ranks as the worst European city for parking, earning just 14.1 out of 100 in their study. The main driver is cost: a typical central space runs £13.21 per hour, the highest rate in Europe. London also operates one of the world's most extensive congestion charge zones, now covering large parts of inner London, which adds a daily fee on top of whatever parking costs. Many Londoners choose not to own a car at all. Those who do find the combination of high street-parking rates, scarce residential bays, and expanding low-traffic neighbourhoods makes driving genuinely difficult to sustain.
Barcelona: LEZ pressure and disappearing street space
Barcelona's superblock programme has systematically removed car access from entire city grids, converting street lanes to pedestrian and cycle use. The city's low-emission zone is expanding, concentrating the remaining legal parking demand into a shrinking footprint. Barcelona has the highest parking-app usage in Spain, which is a direct signal of frustrated demand. Drivers who need a car for work, family, or logistics cannot switch to transit overnight. They circle, they overpay, and they look for alternatives.
Why so many spaces sit empty anyway
The parking crisis in each of these cities is partly a distribution failure, not just a supply failure. Spaces go unused for several overlapping reasons:
- Vacation periods. Residents in Rome and Paris leave for summer for weeks at a time. Their bay sits locked while drivers outside cannot find a spot.
- Work hours. A residential space in Bucharest or Barcelona is empty all day while the owner commutes. A commercial lot is full during the day and empty all night.
- Second bays. Buildings with multiple allocated bays per apartment often have one sitting permanently unused after a household downsizes its cars.
- No listing infrastructure. Owners with idle space have no simple way to make it visible. Without a map pin, it does not exist to anyone searching.
This is the specific gap Spot Run was built to close: give private, idle spaces a live address on a map, so drivers can find them and owners can earn from them.
What you can do about it
If you drive in any of these cities, the street supply is not coming back. The practical options are monthly contracts with private owners (cheaper and more flexible than garage rates), peer-to-peer booking for specific durations, and booking ahead rather than circling.
If you own a space that sits empty for any part of the week, listing it takes around ten minutes and costs nothing. Spot Run charges 5% commission from the renter side only; listers keep 100% of their listed price.
Find a nearby spot or list your space at spot-run.sogood.business.
Întrebări frecvente
Which European city has the worst parking? By cost, London ranks worst: central spaces average over £13 per hour, and the congestion charge adds a daily surcharge on top. By vehicle-to-stall ratio, Rome is among the hardest: roughly 22 vehicles for every public parking stall. By daily search time, Bucharest and Paris both see drivers spending 30 to 60 minutes per trip looking for a spot.
Why is parking so hard to find in historic European cities? Most of the centres were built before cars existed. Streets are narrow, blocks are dense, and there was no provision for private parking at scale. Adding supply means building underground, which is expensive and slow. The faster fix is making the private supply that already exists visible and bookable.
What are people doing about parking shortages in these cities? The most practical options are peer-to-peer rental of residential and office bays, monthly contracts with private owners at rates below garage prices, and booking ahead via map-based apps that show real availability rather than requiring a search through static listings.
Can you make money from an unused parking space in these cities? Yes. In Bucharest, Rome, Paris, London, and Barcelona, idle residential bays can be listed for monthly or short-term rental. Spot Run's free listing lets owners set a price, specify access, and receive bookings without an upfront cost or ongoing subscription.
Surse
iSelect, Which Cities Have the Worst Parking? (January 2026): https://www.iselect.com.au/car-insurance/insights/worst-parking-cities/
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