ing Charges a Good Idea? Both the London Borough of Camden and the City of Edin-
burgh, for example, say that their schemes would actually reduce parking costs for 60% to 65% of affected drivers! How can mak- ing car ownership and use cheaper reduce car dependence and use? For sure, the scheme offers an incentive to own less-polluting vehi- cles, but as I have said before, if you spend $64,000-plus on own- ing a Range Rover, I really do not see that an extra pound a day (about $1.61) for car parking is going to make you rush to trade it in for a Prius; it’s just not going to happen. I have no issue with the basic philosophy of these types of
schemes. The principle is clear: to charge drivers proportionately more to park larger (i.e., high polluting vehicles). The schemes do not seemto have as an objective to reduce car use; rather, they seek to influence the type of car being used. However, it seems to me that largely for political reasons, many municipalities that are going down this route see it as politically expedient to balance the rise in the cost for high-emission cars with a reduction for less environmentally damaging vehicles. Clearly, reducing motoring costs for anyone is not conducive to a desire to reduce car use.
I also believe that such an initiative cannot be looked at in iso-
lation by the cities concerned. There seems little point in applying such ameasure to one element of the parking supply if other com- peting facilities are unchanged. Drivers will simply adjust their behavior to get the best deal in the new competitive environment. Certainly in a case like Richmond, the risk that drivers of larger (i.e., costlier) vehicles will simply relocate up the road to another borough to shop couldmean that local retailers lose business. Finally, I believe that the proponents of such schemes need
perhaps a reality check when it comes to their pricing strategies.A 100% increase in parking charges across the board could be seen as political suicide, butwhen this represents a fraction of a percent of the total cost of running such vehicles, perhaps the councils need to be just a little braver if they want to see the schemes work.
Peter Guest is Parking Today’s correspondent for all things British and European. He can be reached at
peterguestparking@hotmail.co.uk.
PT Digital Deploys License Plate Parking Digital Payment Technologies (DPT), introduced License-
Plate-Enabled Parking (LEP), an ecosystem of technologies using the license plate as the key identifier to access an enhanced parking experience. LEP provides significant opera- tional, revenue generation and enforcement benefits formunici- palities, institutions and parking operators and far greater con- venience for parkers. DPT has incorporated LEP-enabling tech- nology into newLUKE and SHELBYpay stations.Operators of existing LUKE and SHELBY pay stations can take advantage of the LEP parking model with field-upgradeable keypads and software updates. “LEP is the cornerstone for a range of innovative new park-
ing applications that will change the way that both parking oper- ators and parkers in NorthAmerica think about parking,” said AlanMenezes, vice president of product management and mar- keting atDPT. “The LEP ecosystemis based on technology part- ners, and ourDigitalAPI open systemarchitecture,which allows DPT clients and partners to build an integrated solution of advanced payment, management and enforcement capabilities. The resulting solutions increase revenue, reduce operational costs and offer new services that will make parking simpler and more convenient for parkers.”
With Pay-by-License Plate (PBL), an enabling technology for
LEP, parkers enter their license plate number at the pay station when paying for a parking session. They do not need to remember a space number or return to their cars to place a receipt. They sim- ply pay and walk.When combined with additional LEP technolo- gies such as Pay-by-Phone, parkers will be able to access conven- ient services from a mobile device such as the ability to receive alerts when their parking sessions are about to expire and even add additional time to pay-station-initiated parking sessions remotely. If they should happen to run over time, parkers will be able to pay citations directly at the pay station with operators potentially offer- ing discounts for immediate settlement.
www.parkingtoday.com DECEMBER 2010 • PARKING TODAY •
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