Change Parking Pricing and Enforcement

A real focus has to be applied to an outdated industry-Parking

In my previous articles I have written about the long standing grudge held by many motorists and the media over parking, parking controls and fines.

This does not appear to be improving.

In 2008, the Traffic management Act (TMA) 2004 was introduced as a means of ensuring that enforcement was fairer.

As I have already stated, it was out of date before even being introduced. Today it does not permit the use of many sophisticated types of enforcement and so many technologies available to improve enforcement and take cost out of enforcing cannot be used.

This results in the Tech. wizards moving on to develop smart Tech. in other industries.

In a nutshell, legislation halts progress in the same way as it is supposed to improve it.

In the UK our infrastructure is broken, when compared to Europe or even many developing countries, we are so far behind that we are a joke nation.

Infrastructure as it is Today

Railway stations built up to a mile away from bus stations, still even happening today.

One of the smallest Tram infrastructures in Europe.

Bike lanes that are a piece of tarmac running out for no given or obvious region other than some planner got bored or found the extension to be too much of a political challenge.

Entitlement

I wrote recently about entitlement. The entitlement to charge for parking and to charge for enforcement. This should be based upon the quality of the land provided for its use:

Good parking surfaces and a clean space

Wide bays

Walkable space between cars to assist passengers and drivers with restricted mobility

Well lit with CCTV for security

Ease of payment, providing all methods of payment

Local Authorities should set an example by ensuring that their controlled car parks are top quality. The same Local Authority, along with an independent body should then regulate the car park standards.

Only then can the land be declared fit to park upon.

Pricing should then be set based upon high standards. We should not be afraid of rejecting landowners from providing parking that is clearly not fit for purpose and price based upon quality.

Price Controls

The Goods and Services (“Price Control”) Act 1941 empowered the Board of Trade to issue Orders fixing the maximum prices that may be charged at any stage of production or distribution for goods specified in the Orders.

This became most prevalent under a labour government when supermarket prices were getting out of control and not only creating inflation but much grumbling about “The price of butter”.

This was revoked by Margaret Thatcher, conservative and controls on prices were abolished soon after the 1979 general election, and the Counter-Inflation Act 1973 was repealed by the Competition Act 1980.

Fair economics was often given as the reason for the abolishment.

In many industries, customers have a choice of where they shop or purchase, competition in itself does a great job of regulating price.

Parking however is different. I have always found the following.

The Golden Rules of Parking Pricing

Proximity is King / Queen-People don’t want the inconvenience of walking far to their destination and so in a town or city, closest to the core is most expensive AND often has a much higher occupancy rate.

At an airport, everyone want to be closest to departures, but doesn’t want to pay the price.

Long walking is to be avoided, people will only walk if the cost is far less. Airport buses are frequent, but when people have time anxiety around catching their flight, and lots of luggage, do they want the added inconvenience?

Today we live in a society where drive-ins are popping up everywhere, food is delivered to your door. Convenience is important to the masses.

But does proximity provide the entitlement to charge more, particularly when the standards are low?

Tariffs

Car park pricing today-Tariff setting is as crude as it can possibly get.

Only a small handful of car park providers charge more based upon:

Size of vehicle

CC Emissions

Visitor or Resident

Previously I covered how a local authority can be reluctant to increase car parking annually, the backlash from the media, councillors who loss their nerve always win and so tariffs only get attention when it is politically acceptable to do so. Post local / national election.

Remember, no party will ever win an election if they raise a price or tax and so we get mot often what we deserve:

Poor health, Education and of course services that includes parking-But a fatter pay cheque.

There are many alternatives, locals should be rewarded for using car parks over visitors, larger vehicles should pay more as should those with higher carbon emissions.

Governments don’t need to set far out dates for abolishing the sale of ICE vehicles at 2030 and then change them to 2035. All they need to do is to set motivational levels high to allow people to move to EV and low to change from ICE.

The Future

I would like to see Local Authorities, land owners graded so that their powers of pricing and enforcement (Entitlement) was Increased / reduced, based upon what the put into their land or local area (Infrastructure)

Have kerbed cycle lanes been provided on all arterial routes to and from the town or city core in tandem with bus lanes (1 mile long)?

Different means of transport linked-Bus, Train, Tram?

Taxis kept out of bus lanes

Mopeds kept out of cycle lanes

Mobility hubs created in all car parks-providing good bike, scooter storage with Car club hire available and parcel delivery / collection facilities?

Pedestrianisation of towns and cities and living spaces provisioned-Waltham Forest are a good recent example?

Payments accessed by all popular methods?

A 20mph speed limit imposed in all built up areas, traffic bumps removed and more sophisticated traffic calming means introduced

New Tariffs

Local authorities and car parking providers should be graded baed upon quality of parking and how they treat the improved mobility of their towns and cities:

Green

Permited to undertake enforcement and issue the highest penalty and charge a higher parking Tariff

Blue

Permitted to undertake enforcement but at a lower level fee and charge less fro parking

Red

Unable to take enforcement action and not permitted to charge for parking

I can hear the many readers of this article shuddering as today a very high number will fall into the Red category or perhaps partially Blue when they see how their revenue could be impacted.

The positive however being that infrastructure investment would create a happier citizen and greater raising of revenue to benefit more improvements.

But like any scheme that is designed to improve service and remove the grudge of a parking patent / service, these would have to be introduced over time.

The How?

I don’t see that today we have a body, or an organisation that is capable of assisting in introducing these schemes, if there were it would have happened by now:

The Department of Transport are stuck in Glue

The bodies that represent parking would not wish to upset their membership and their published materials only ever state the facts without any critical commentary on the same.

But come a new government, someone has to step up to not only advise government but to drive new schemes that can only ultimately benefit all.

About the author

Chris has extensive commercial, technical and practical experience in the parking & mobility industry. 

Over the last 20 years has gained an unsurpassed knowledge of the private, public and airport parking transportation and mobility sectors. 

In his most recent role, Chris was the Managing Director of Metric Group UK, the manufacturer of car park payment solutions, with over 900 customers and 18,000 parking solutions UK and worldwide.

He has delivered several consulting projects with extensive work at airports in the APAC region, UK, Europe and USA.

Working with investment funds and potential acquirers he has advised at due diligence and post-acquisition level for investors and C level executives on strategy and implementation.

Prior to consulting, He worked for some of the world’s largest car park operating companies at General Manager level. 

As Head of Parking Services at Royal Borough of Greenwich in London, Chris was responsible for delivering on and off-street parking services in a very diverse London borough.

As Country Manager for an Electric Vehicle (EV) start up business in 2011, he engaged with real estate and parking companies to build an EV infrastructure and was one of the EV pioneers.

As a practitioner he gained a deep understanding of airports whilst Head of Commercial, for parking and ground transportation at both London Gatwick airport (world’s largest airport parking operation) and Melbourne International airport, Australia, the largest parking operation in the Southern hemisphere

Chris holds an International Master of Business Administration qualification that he undertook during full time study at Henley Business School in 2003.