DRIVERS are finding paying for public parking an anxious ordeal, with 40 per cent of UK motorists saying it's as stressful as being late for work.

With so many different payment methods used across Britain, from ticket machines to apps, research by Skoda UK found that 20 per cent compared it to having an argument, 16 per cent said it was stressful as opening a bill and nine per cent as bad as going to the dentist.

Almost half of motorists in the UK have given up paying for parking altogether because the process was too difficult, while 18 per cent have said they'd spent more than 10 minutes trying to pay for a space.

In addition, 33 per cent have failed to pay for parking at least once, and later received a fine as a result.

The British public's least favourite payment method is an automated phone call, followed by a parking app and then a ticket machine, according to the research.

Skoda is aiming to make the public's parking woes less troublesome, as it trials a new and innovative service to ease parking pain. Pay to Park enables cashless payments for parking directly via the Škoda infotainment system.

The Pay to Park service automatically identifies the car park or parking zone you've entered using the car's navigation and handles payments automatically. This leaves the driver without the anxiety levels, while sessions can be extended using the MySkoda app.

Pay to Park is currently being trialled in Scandinavia, Germany, Belgium, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, and will soon be available in the Czech Republic, Spain, France, Netherlands, Slovenia, Hungary, with plans for the system to be trialled in the UK in the future.