How it could be done

[FTMDave]

Hi everyone,

 

this is not the usual thread about tackling a speculative invoice, so if in the wrong place please move or delete!

 

It's always struck me that the private parking cowboys are a particularly British phenomenon.

 

Yesterday I stopped in a shopping complex in Mestre, which is the mainland town opposite Venice. The complex is near the bus station, near the train station, near the centre, and near the public transport routes to Venice, and I would suspect a place that non-customers could easily want to park. So, for once, there is a need for proper private parking control. So how do they do it?

 

Well, with a barrier system, like an airport. There is free parking for two hours. Who overstays that for a short time has to pay €0.80 for the extra hour. Who stays there for hours and hours has to pay €0.80 per hour. So genuine customers pay nothing, if you're a bit late you pay a bit, and if people want to use the car park for non-shopping purposes they have to pay the owners more money, but still a very reasonable amount.

 

If that can be done in Italy, not known for its organisation, why not in Britain?

[Oddfellow]

Because no-one can make a fast buck out of it Dave, that's why!

[BankFodder]

That's how it was done 20 years ago

[Andyorch]

And this is Britain

[ericsbrother]

That way the parking co spends tens of thousands on equipment and earns pennies per hour. With the favoured method here they spend about £200 on signs, the same on a mickey mouse camera system and get their money back with 2 cars breaking the "contract" offered by the rubbish signage.

 

Obviously, chaos would ensue with a pay on exit system that cannot be overridden or exploited by one side or the other. People would park without fear of the consequences and may enjoy themselves rather than having to consult their lawyers before putting a quid in the meter. How would that possibly earn the government's biggest outsourcing partner £200million a year?

 

As it stands, most local councils outsource the emptying of the coin meters to a contractor and it is funny, not one penny is ever overpaid by motorists into machines that do not give change ( they do make machines that issues change but so-one uses them, why is that I wonder?) when the cash is counted and returned to the council > I know this from a FOI request. I fact one council said that people underpaid by 10p one year (not Capita miscounting the bit they kept back then).

 

This is why people like the parking prankster and members of the various forums bother to post, there is a better way in every case but the vested interests and laziness prevail every time. Even the contracts used by the parking cos can be simplified to avoid any confusion whatsoever but again that is not the aim of the industry.

 

Besides, some operators are too thick to do joined up thinking or writing.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Andyorch
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