News & Discussion: CBD Carparks

[JaySun]

Dear reader,

The following regards a proposal for a new payment option for Adelaide street parking. As you are most probably aware, the current roadside ‘ticket vending machine’ is the only readily available option currently on offer to Adelaide motorists. As I’m sure most of you have experienced, this often presents a problem when one hasn’t the right change to feed the machine. And of coarse there is the added frustration of not being able to get change from the machine when you have too much. After writing to the Adelaide City council, indicating my interested in an alternative option, I was informed of a pre-paid ‘scratch card’ option, which can be displayed on the dashboard of a car as one would display a regular parking ticket. However, as these ‘scratch tickets’ are only available from the Adelaide City council office (and not promoted in any way, as far as I know) it is hardly a readily accessible and convenient option. Not only that, but these tickets are for single use only and valid for a maximum of just 2 hours. Considering that they cost $4 each (which is more than what it costs to purchase from most street vending machines), it hardly presents itself as a serious alternative.
My proposal is not to replace the current vending machine system, but to provide Adelaide motorists with an alternative option that would provide an added convenience for many.
Pre-paid parking permits could be purchased as a monthly, bi-monthly, etc. ‘block period’ and displayed in the front windscreen of a vehicle. Not only would the Adelaide City council have the parking fees up front, but motorists wouldn’t be inconvenienced by searching for loose change and walking back and forth to vending machines. As with the current method of payment, all parking time restrictions that are displayed on signs in the applicable zone would still be obeyed.
The pre-paid parking option would be most beneficial to motorists who are regular users of Adelaide City street space, which include the many employees of the surrounding businesses.
Of coarse, the costing for the pre-paid permits would be the responsibility of the Adelaide City council and based on average parking expenditure for the allocated ‘block period’. As the cost of city parking varies slightly from street to street, specific ‘region permits’ could be taken into consideration.
I have spoken of this proposal to many Adelaide motorists, and have found that a market exists for such an initiative. The only objection that I can think of that could discourage the Adelaide City council would be the possible reduction in parking fines that they would accrue (a bias that encouraged me to write to you and not them). Although this may be the case, I believe that when weighing up the pros and cons of such a proposal, or any kind of proposal for that matter, the greater good of the cities citizens should be kept at the forefront of all intentions. A true necessity for a forward moving city such as ours.

I look forward to receiving your insights.

[Edgar]

Next time, when you decide to type something really long, could you kindly please paraphrase them in paragraphs? It is very hard to read for people like me, and others you know.

Since it is quite hard to read your post, you;ve said something about prepaid ticketing, or somewhere around there.

Now, let me begin first by telling you the parking options we currently have back in Malaysia. In the old days, we would just need to park our car, and the parking attendance would come around and write the ticket, which we would then need to go to the booth/counter to pay the fees.

It was inefficient, worse when it rained and soaked the tickets. Then we moved on to punch tickets. We need to purchase these pre-paid tickets from the booth/counter which comes in 1/2 hour, 1 hour, and another set of 1 hour after the first hour tickets. They comes in different prices, and we need to punch the holes in the tickets, again it became inefficient due to people abusing the reverse punch technique and re-use the tickets. Then there is the ridiculous side of it, let's say I would like to park for 5 hours, then I would need to display the ticket slip of the first hour, then subsequent tickets for the following hours (after the first hour ticket slip), and display all 5 of the tickets on the dash. Sounds stupid? Yes, have you seen a car parked for the entire day and had to display all 9 ticket slips covering the entire dash?

Now, to overcome the reverse punch technique, they introduced the instant scratch technique, where it is impossible for anyone to do any reverse tactic to re-use the slips, but still, it is inconvenient because the longer you park, the more tickets you have to display. There is no time limit for street parking. The best ways I've seen was, slipping the ticket on the windscreen wiper, a clean brand new slip, unscratched. Why? They were hoping the attendance would scratch it for them

Anyway, my point is, the prepaid ticketing thing is not very effective.

What I would like to propose instead is, I do agree with you, the ticketing machine which accepts coins-only are annoying. Not everyone carries loose change. But what could be done is:

1) Propose a prepaid card for these parking machine. A multi flexi card that is valid even for U-park.

How does that work? Well, anyone who would like to pay their parking tickets or fees (in the U-park) without having to get the loose change can do so with these prepaid card. They don't only need to be pre-paid credited to be used, it can be post-paid, so you get the bills at the end of the month for your total usage, just like your credit card or AMEX.

2) Ticketing machine to accept both cards and still retain the coins slot.

Besides being able to purchase ticket using these cards, we could still use coins to purchase them, meaning those people who do not wish to purchase or use these prepaid flexi card, can use the traditional way of paying by coins.

3) Setting up additional booth or machine for prepaid flexi card purchases, or to reload credits into the cards.

Make it a widely used cards for city parking. If you want to purchase one of this card, just go to the machine, pay your credits and get a new card (for additional fees of course, say $2) which can be used forever. Also allow the credit purchase for when you want to reload your cards.


I don't think there is anything wrong with the ticketing system in Adelaide, just the coins-only machine is a bit annoying at times.

[monotonehell]

Your idea for prepaid ignores one reason behind paid parking, other than revenue raising, the idea is that in some places you only get a certain amount of time then you must move on and give someone else a go. With your prepaid parking, how would a parking officer know how long you've been in a place properly and if you're entitled to stay?

One option that might work would be what Edgar suggests and that is to have a prepaid card or a post paid bill system where a ticket is issued from the machines as per usual but can be paid for by a card. The only problem with such a system is the cost of networking all the units (this would be megabucks), and installing new systems into the car parks, that would be cost inhibitive for the under funded UPark council division. UPark's car parks all work of un-networked systems, and there's three different incompatible systems in the different parks. Two ancient ones that ironically work the best in the majority of the parks, and one modern system that is rubbish, but can accept credit cards.

[Norman]

I'd prefer to have monthy or yearly PT tickets return first, it might actually encourage more people to use PT at a more consistant basis.

But that's another thread...

[Wayno]

How about an "e-parking" system that works in all metro council areas! It would work roughly like this:

Once-off E-Parking System Registration
* You register and nominate your credit card or savings account number
* Registration could be done at the Dept of Transport (when renewing your car rego), at any council office, or via a dediated website (like the ezyreg website)
* You receive a sticker that you put on your windscreen (similar to rego sticker)

The parking process
* Each car space has a unique id assigned by the council and painted on the road (e.g. ACC-KWS-405)
* Once parked you use your mobile phone to call a tollfree Adelaide-wide number (e.g. 1800 555 1234)
* A voice-recognition system asks for the "car space unique id" and your car rego number (e.g. ZBC 123)
* Your account gets deducted by the minimum parking fee (and gets topped-up automatically in increments throughout the day!).
* When departing the car spot you call the number again and the system reimburses any unused credit!

The brown-bombers
* The ticket inspector has a wireless device that checks car spots for up to date fees. If you don;t have the old paper-ticket on your dash then he checks the e-parking system. Heck, he could even check ALL the carparks in his region and walk direct to where cars have been parked too long!!!

probably some challenges with this idea - just a braindump at present...

[Edgar]

Just on the side note, I noticed yesterday that these ticketing attendance now take photos of your car, the location, and possibly the parking signs, when you are going to receive a ticket. As a measure of your infringement proof , go the PDAs with camera.

I think the concern jaysun has is with the coins-only ticketing machine currently available.

While I think the best way is to retain the pay-and-display ticketing system, but we should start giving more options in paying. Such as ticketing machines that provide change or accept cards like what I proposed before. It is the easiest solution.

The mobile thingy don't work. They already have that in London and it fails miserably.

[monotonehell]

...While I think the best way is to retain the pay-and-display ticketing system, but we should start giving more options in paying. Such as ticketing machines that provide change or accept cards like what I proposed before. It is the easiest solution...

You may think it's the easiest solution, but for stand alone machines to accept credit cards is actually very difficult and expensive.

[Edgar]

I am not talking credit cards, I am saying prepaid cards. You charge your card with credits and they are deducted as you use them to buy parking tickets. You can charge these cards on a seperate machine or over the internet.

[monotonehell]

I am not talking credit cards, I am saying prepaid cards. You charge your card with credits and they are deducted as you use them to buy parking tickets. You can charge these cards on a seperate machine or over the internet.

That would still require some kind of network for validation = expensive.

[Bulldozer]

I am not talking credit cards, I am saying prepaid cards. You charge your card with credits and they are deducted as you use them to buy parking tickets. You can charge these cards on a seperate machine or over the internet.

That would still require some kind of network for validation = expensive.

No it doesn't. You can do a stand-alone cash card system with smart cards. The council could have vending machines that dispense cards and/or allow you top-up your card. They could also make it so that certain merchants can have terminals for debiting and crediting the cards. You couldn't call a number or use the internet to top up the card though because the card itself stores how much cash it has, not some central database like with credit and debit cards. The card has to be physically present to conduct any transaction. Ticket machines on the street could then deduct the correct amount from the card when you buy your parking ticket.

While it is very possible to have such a system, governments tend not to like them because they're anonymous just like cash and so they can't link a card to a person and track their transactions/movements. They can track each card if they network the debiting machines as each card would have a unique key, but unless they give you the option of charging your card up with your credit card or only issue cards to people if they fill out an application form then they can't link the card to you.

I think such a system is what pretty much every smart card-based public transport ticketing system in the world is.

[monotonehell]

I am not talking credit cards, I am saying prepaid cards. You charge your card with credits and they are deducted as you use them to buy parking tickets. You can charge these cards on a seperate machine or over the internet.

That would still require some kind of network for validation = expensive.

No it doesn't. You can do a stand-alone cash card system with smart cards. The council could have vending machines that dispense cards and/or allow you top-up your card. They could also make it so that certain merchants can have terminals for debiting and crediting the cards. You couldn't call a number or use the internet to top up the card though because the card itself stores how much cash it has, not some central database like with credit and debit cards. The card has to be physically present to conduct any transaction. Ticket machines on the street could then deduct the correct amount from the card when you buy your parking ticket.

While it is very possible to have such a system, governments tend not to like them because they're anonymous just like cash and so they can't link a card to a person and track their transactions/movements. They can track each card if they network the debiting machines as each card would have a unique key, but unless they give you the option of charging your card up with your credit card or only issue cards to people if they fill out an application form then they can't link the card to you.

I think such a system is what pretty much every smart card-based public transport ticketing system in the world is.

Okay if you take away "You can charge these cards on a separate machine or over the internet." then yes you could do a top up card system like they have for most photocopiers in libraries these days. But again the technology needed to roll this out is beyond what the corporation are willing to spend on the UPark division (those miserly rascals )

[Edgar]

Well, if no to cash-change ticketing machine, no to smart card machine, what can you come up with?

If these U-Parks station can come up with cash-change ticketing machine, I cannot see why it cannot be done in city parking machines.

[Cruise]

Well, if no to cash-change ticketing machine, no to smart card machine, what can you come up with?

If these U-Parks station can come up with cash-change ticketing machine, I cannot see why it cannot be done in city parking machines.

tho honest system?

[Edgar]

Well, if no to cash-change ticketing machine, no to smart card machine, what can you come up with?

If these U-Parks station can come up with cash-change ticketing machine, I cannot see why it cannot be done in city parking machines.

tho honest system?

what?

[monotonehell]

Well, if no to cash-change ticketing machine, no to smart card machine, what can you come up with?

If these U-Parks station can come up with cash-change ticketing machine, I cannot see why it cannot be done in city parking machines.

Because there's only 4 of those in UPark and they're a constant problem of breakdown. They require daily visits from the technicians because they are so unreliable. Imagine the cost of replacing all the street parking machines with something like that?

The thing with big idea technological solutions to real world problems is that if you've ever worked in the industry you'd know that unless you're willing to spend MEGAbucks in development, testing and rollout you get machines that don't work. And even if you are prepared to spend the money and time you still get machines that don't work.

Did you know that the only fully automated parking structure in the World is in Adelaide? And that it doesn't work. Every other carpark in the World that looks automatic has an attendant hiding somewhere ready to pounce on the malfunctions that happen several times a day.

The old 1980's machines in UPark work better and require less maintenance than the Windows based mess they've installed into Topham.