Work has begun on developing a new parking app and smart-parking technology that will help people find available on-street car parks in Adelaide's CBD.

The Adelaide City Council has budgeted almost $3 million to develop the app and install sensors under all 2,300 on-street car parks throughout the city.

Those sensors will be able to detect when vehicles enter and exit the parking spaces and measure how long vehicles remain in the parking space, vacancy rates and the turnover.

Lord Mayor Martin Haese said it would help make the city more welcoming and reduce expiation notices for motorists.

"You'll be able to drive into the city of Adelaide, look on an app, find an available on-street car park, park in it and then be reminded when it's due to expire," he said.

"They can top up should they be caught in a doctor's rooms or whatever they're doing, so they don't receive an expiation.

"It puts complete control in the hands of the motorist."

A trial of the smart parking technology was undertaken on Hutt Street earlier this year, which Lord Mayor Haese said had given council the confidence it was on the right path.

But the full scheme will not be completed until the end of 2017.

Parking initiative aims to bring people to CBD: council

Councillor Houssam Abiad said he hoped initiatives like this would help change the council's anti-car perception.

"I sort of want to address the elephant in the room — there is a perception issue," he said.

"If you ask anyone outside the city why don't you come to the city, they'll say 'can't find parking, it's too expensive'.

"We need to be able to combat that as an organisation."

Council has also decided to expand the free city wi-fi network.

"It's a very popular service and we're going to expand it into some key areas around the city — North Adelaide included," he said.