The RAC has reported that 73% of drivers who have used parking payment apps over the past year have experienced difficulties with them.
46% said they prefer to pay with a bank card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, while 33% preferred to pay with cash.
Parking payment apps were preferred by 30% of drivers surveyed by the RAC.
Of the drivers struggling to use parking apps, 70% reported problems with phone signal in car parks.
Drivers also reported frustration at apps not correctly recognising which car park they were in (36%) and app crashes (35%).
30% of drivers reported functionality problems and 24% said they had issues with apps not accepting their bank card.
Just over one-in-10 drivers (13%) said they could not work out how to use the app. This doubled to 26% for drivers over 75.
The Government launched the National Parking Platform earlier in the year, which allows drivers to use a single parking payment app.
It is currently used by 10 local authorities.
Rod Dennis, senior policy officer at the RAC, said: “There’s no doubt mobile apps have an important and increasing role to play when it comes to parking our vehicles, and the best ones make parking an easier task for many of us.
“But our figures show there’s still plenty drivers find frustrating about using them – whether that’s a lack of mobile signal, problems registering bank cards, or the app crashing or behaving strangely.
“Parking should, in theory at least, be one of the simplest tasks any driver completes but having to navigate a variety of differently designed apps – and register an account, vehicle details and bank cards with each one – can be a pain.
“Having card details saved with a myriad of different providers also isn’t ideal from security perspective, as unlike using conventional websites there’s generally no reassuring padlock symbol on parking apps to show card details are being shared securely.
“The launch of the National Parking Platform, which we welcome, should spell the end of drivers needing to download lots of separate apps just to park and simplify things enormously.
“This does depend on enough local authorities and parking companies up and down the country signing up, though.”
The RAC found that 64% of drivers who use parking payment apps have at least two installed on their phone. 36% have at least three and 15% have four.
Dennis said: “For anyone running into difficulty when paying by app is the only option, whether that’s struggling with phone signal or the app just not working, we strongly recommend they collect evidence of their attempts to park, including screenshots of any app errors.
“This can be used to challenge the parking operator in the event they send the driver a parking charge notice for apparently not paying to park, as it shows the driver did everything they reasonably could to pay.
“We also continue to believe that all parking operators, whether public or private, should offer drivers at least two different ways to pay.
“No-one should be forced to use to a mobile app when parking if they don’t want to, especially those who struggle with technology or just don’t have a smartphone.”
