Get the app

Where to park in Mahón

Mahón has the town above the water and the port below it, and each level parks under its own rulebook: down on the quay the paid parking is run by the Autoritat Portuària de Balears, while up in town the municipal ORA sets the turnover by colour and the heart of the old town takes residents and authorised vehicles only, read by camera. The two levels are joined by the Costa de Ses Voltes and by a public lift, and picking one of them settles everything else. Doobl is a free parking app for iPhone and Android that brings together every way to park near your destination: car parks, how likely you are to park on each street, EV chargers and accessible bays.

Download for iPhoneDownload for Android

The four options

Four ways to park, and two levels to do it on

The quay and the town charge separately, and that split comes before everything else: work out which of the two holds your destination, and only then weigh the car park, the kerb, the charger and the bays reserved for people with reduced mobility. Doobl brings all four into one search around the address you type, with what each of them costs in time and in money.

  • Car parks

    Two enclosures compete for the same visit and they answer to different owners: the one at the Port de Maó belongs to the Autoritat Portuària de Balears and sets its own terms, and the one on the Plaça de s’Esplanada is the municipal yard, up against the bus station. In Doobl they come up with their price, beside the kerb and the chargers, so the comparison starts with the level rather than with the metres.

  • Regulated kerb (ORA)

    Up in town, regulated parking in Mahón is called the ORA and paints the roadway in three colours: the blue zone is the rotating one, open to anyone; green gives the resident priority inside their own sector; orange rotates as well, but it is meant for the short errand, on different streets from the blue. Down on the quay none of the three applies.

  • EV chargers

    Plugging in here depends on the level the car ends up staying on: the point down below serves whoever is not leaving the quay, and the one on the upper edge whoever is doing the old town on foot. In Doobl the chargers come up in the same list as the car parks and the kerb, with the stretch that is left to walk afterwards.

  • Accessible bays

    The level changes the reserved bay too: down below they lie flat on the quay at the water’s edge; up in town they sit inside the core the camera filters, or around the Hospital Mateu Orfila, which is where the whole island ends up. Doobl marks the bays reserved for people with reduced mobility next to the enclosure and the kerb, and which level they fall on changes how far the door still is.

Where people head

Four destinations, and the town’s rules do not reach them all

The ORA governs two of these four destinations. The quay answers to the Autoritat Portuària de Balears, and the Aeroport de Menorca has its own car park and its own terms even though the ground it stands on belongs to Mahón. Knowing who owns the ground where you stop settles the decision long before distance does.

Port de Maó

One bay, two quays and a single owner of the ground: the Moll de Llevant carries the restaurants and lives from the afternoon into the night, while the Moll de Ponent holds the Estació Marítima, where the ferry and the cruise calls come in. The Autoritat Portuària de Balears runs its own paid parking here, and the town’s by-laws do not come down to the water — they begin where the road finishes climbing.

Leave the car down here only if the plan stays down here: from the quay to the town you go up by the Costa de Ses Voltes or by the public lift, never by crossing a street.

Plaça de s’Esplanada

Three uses share one surface: the bus station, the weekly market and the municipal car park. That surface is also one of the points where the old town starts being read by camera, so the car stops advancing exactly where you leave it — from there inwards the visit happens on foot, whatever brought you.

Type s’Esplanada into the navigator instead of an address inside the core: the navigator cannot tell which streets ask for a permit, and the camera can.

Aeroport de Menorca

The terminal carries the name of the whole island, but the ground is Mahón’s and so is every road leading away from it. That changes who parks here: not only the visitor landing, but the resident of any other town on Menorca who has come to catch a flight, because there is nowhere else to catch one. The terminal’s own car park runs on its own terms, outside the ORA.

A car left for the week and a car dropping somebody at the door are not the same search: the long option is chosen before you take the road out, because at the terminal nothing is left to compare.

Hospital Mateu Orfila

It is not the neighbourhood that arrives at this address, it is the island: Menorca’s only referral hospital, reached along the same trunk road every other town was already funnelled onto. It sits up at town level, with regulated kerb around it and none of the core’s camera filter, which makes it the most predictable of the four.

The morning appointment and the morning road are the same hour: anyone crossing the island for an early slot finds the hospital’s own ground taken before the streets around it.

The rules

What governs up top, and what governs below

  • The ORA and where it stops

    Regulated parking in Mahón is called the ORA, is painted in three colours and — this is what sets it apart — runs the whole year, without the winter let-up a seasonal place is assumed to have. Inside the old town there are also streets whose access is camera-controlled and open to residents and authorised vehicles only. Neither rule comes down to the quay: the ground and the charge there belong to the port. What the hours, the tariffs and the zone maps say is set and updated by the City Council.

ORA colours, hours and tariffs on the Mahón council website

The app

Mahón, decided by level

Search your destination in Doobl and look first at which level it falls on: the quay and the town do not compare themselves, and the app puts the enclosure, the regulated kerb and the charger side by side, with what each of them costs.

  1. Search

    Type the exact address rather than “Mahón”: two rulebooks fit between the quay and the old town, with very little distance between them.

  2. Compare

    You get the port’s yard, the town’s yard and the regulated kerb next to one another, with their price.

  3. Park

    If the spot you picked is up top, the last stretch is the Costa de Ses Voltes or the lift; if it is down below, you have already arrived.

Answers

Parking in Mahón, question by question

How do you park in Mahón?
Check whether your destination falls on the quay or in the town, because the same rulebook does not govern both: below, the parking belongs to the port; above, the ORA rules, and in the heart of the old town so does the access permit. Once that is settled, search your destination in Doobl and compare the car parks, the street and the chargers around it.
Where can you park for free in Mahón?
Unpainted kerb starts where the ORA ends: in the streets above the old town and out along the exits towards the main road. Do not look for it towards the water, because the quay has an owner and a tariff of its own and does not answer to the town. And whoever leaves the car outside is signing up to walk back into the centre, which is the part nobody adds up when hunting a free space.
Where do I park at Menorca airport?
The Aeroport de Menorca stands inside Mahón even though its name belongs to the whole island, and its parking is no part of the ORA and is not read by it. What has to be settled before leaving home is whether the car stays or comes back the same day, because at the terminal there is nothing left to choose from. Doobl brings together every option around the terminal and along the road that reaches it.
How does the blue zone (ORA) work in Mahón?
Of the three colours the ORA paints here, only two are any use to somebody who does not live in Mahón: blue, open rotation, and orange, meant for short stops on other streets. Green runs by sector and its bay belongs to the resident who holds the permit, so hunting for one is time spent for nothing. In Doobl we tell you the current tariffs and conditions, and you can check them against the council’s own site.
Can you drive into the historic centre of Mahón?
You can drive in; not everybody can. The heart of the old town is camera-controlled and open to residents and authorised vehicles, a filter that reads the census roll and the permit rather than an emissions label. For everybody else the move is to leave the car on the edge — s’Esplanada is the obvious place — and take the centre on foot. If a low-emission zone is ever declared that reaches Menorca, the council will publish it.
Where do you park for the ferry to the mainland in Mahón?
The mainland ferry berths at the Estació Marítima on the Moll de Ponent, which is to say down below: whoever boards touches the town at quay level and never sets foot on an ORA street unless they climb. The ground there belongs to the Autoritat Portuària de Balears, with parking of its own, so what has to be decided is not how far the centre is, but whether the car boards with you or stays behind. Doobl lines the options of that strip up around your destination and compares them by what they’ll actually cost you in time and money.
Where can you charge an electric car in Mahón?
The old town does not let your car in, so the point that helps is on its edge rather than inside it: s’Esplanada, which is where you were leaving the car anyway. A point standing on a bay does not change what the bay is — that bay’s sign still governs, exactly as elsewhere under the ORA — and Doobl weighs the charger in the same comparison as the car park and the kerb.
What is Doobl?
It is the app you settle the level with before going up or down: the port’s yard, the town’s yard, the regulated kerb and the chargers come up on one screen, with what each of them costs. Doobl is a free parking app for iPhone and Android that brings together every way to park near your destination: car parks, how likely you are to park on each street, EV chargers and accessible bays.

Collaborate with us

Your city parks every day. Nobody was measuring it.

Doobl measures how a city’s parking actually works: where spaces are missing, when each street fills up, how much the regulated zone turns over — and turns it into information a one-off traffic count doesn’t show.

The result is an objective basis for planning supply, adjusting the regulated zone or backing a SUMP with evidence.

Get in touch