Anyway, I had fun, and my prin-


cipal rule of thumb for an OK per- formance – they didn’t walk out or throw anything and clapped at the end – was achieved. Perhaps the best bit for me at the


PIE was meeting Larry Donoghue, who is an incredibly nice guy and one of the fewpeoplewho have been in the parking industry longer thanme. Long life, Larry, and hope to have the pleas- ure of talking to you again soon. The PIE was really interesting for


me since it’s all about the U.S.A. way of doing things (obviously), and I see how dramatically different things are on your side of the water. You are much more focused on the money than we in the UK are (it’s not quite polite to talk about money here, don- cha know, old boy). But having said that, I amamazed


at just how primitive some of the rev- enue control systems used in the States are. Bits of paper, stickers on tickets and $5 rubber stamps that can be bought down the road in any stationery store; it just doesn’tmake sense. Some of the stuff thatDennis Cunning talked about at the PIE would be eliminated immediately if you in the U.S. just bought the sort of systems that we in the UK use, and they would probably pay for themselves in days. I also got a chance to talk to some


nice guys fromAnchorage, AK, who seem to be in a different world from the one that I know.With a metropoli- tan area of a third of a million people, they have just two copswriting tickets. They used to use the baby cops just out of the academy as well, but with the recession, they are not running train- ing courses, so no baby cops.You have my number, guys, when the pain gets too bad. Disturbingly, two people at the


PIE quite separately “recognized” me based on the photo that heads this col- umn.That’s “BigBen,” the clock tower at the Houses of Parliament! It’s often been suggested that my face would stop a clock, but this is the first time I have beenmistaken for one! It hurts! That brings me to Intertraffic


Amsterdam. The big show news was that Parkeon, the French parkingmeter company, and Skidata, the Swiss pay- on-foot systems people, announced a “strategic partnership” to pursue both on- and off-street opportunities togeth- er.Not quite sure howthatworks since Parkeon alsomakes systems that com- pete with Skidata’s.


The day this was announced, I met


an old friend who represents Parkeon in an overseas market and one of Skidata’s competitors for off-street parking sys- tems. He also wasn’t sure how it would work in real life. Skidata already has rep- resentation in his region, he said, sowhat is he supposed to do – turn up in the morning promoting his competitor and come back in the afternoon and try to sell the stuff he has? Perhaps a littlemore


thoughtmight be needed? Just as at Parkex, none of the opera-


tors at Intertraffic had a stand, and Euro- pean stalwarts such as Q-Park andVinci Park were noticeable by their absence. I sort of understand this; the main atten- dees as visitors are other businesses and public sector parking people.All public sector work is publicly tendered in open competition, and so the operators really


Continued on Page 52


See us at the IPI booth #118 MAY 2010 • PARKING TODAY • www.parkingtoday.com 51


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