Switching to digital pays off

The digitisation of parking permits saves time and money, writes PayByPhone’s Rebecca Maisey

Parking permits have long been used to give parking rights to specific user groups. Some of the most obvious groups include residents and their visitors, Blue Badge holders, NHS staff and low-emission vehicles. Each cohort must meet specific criteria to qualify for a relevant parking permit.

Resident visitor permits
For many years, permits were paper and included the ability to add the vehicle’s registration number. To prevent fraud, permits featured a secure design element, especially in the case of visitor parking permits, where the car registration number wouldn’t be known in advance.

Administering paper-based parking permits, however, can be a lengthy process. For the London Borough of Ealing, a growing area that has welcomed over 30,000 new residents in the last 15 years, a huge increase in the number of applications for visitor parking permits coming into the council was proving problematic. There were two options:

• residents could request paper scratch cards via a paper application form from the council. Processing these forms would typically take 14 days
• the second option was for residents to book their visitors permit online, but first the council had to establish their residency.

This assessment was done manually, and it wasn’t quick or easy for the residents or the council. Ealing Council wanted a solution to offer residents and businesses visitor permits within the PayByPhone app.

The PayByPhone system harnesses the power of ‘Big Data’. A resident requesting a visitor permit enters their details, which are checked against a multi-layered, highly secure and confidential verification system. Once approved, visitors can start parking immediately with no delay or waiting time that historically occurred when using paper-based systems.

Using postcode mapping software and verification services, residency is determined in a matter of seconds. If approval isn’t granted via the app because a resident has just moved to the area, for example, the resident can securely upload proof of residency for the council to review.

Documents are deleted after the assessment is completed, so even where there is some manual intervention nothing needs to be posted or emailed, making the process as quick and secure as possible. Residents who are eligible but are unable to use computer or smartphone can complete the process by phone.

Ealing Council saw a significant increase in resident accessibility, and usage of, visitor parking permits, and for the visitors there is no need to keep returning to the vehicle to place a scratch card on the dashboard. In the first six months after the roll-out, 78% of applications were verified and automatically approved.

Ninety-nine percent of visitor parking permits generated by Ealing Council are now sold electronically and the entire process takes a matter of minutes, saving the council’s parking team precious time and resources.

Blue Badges

Blue Badges are another category where a digital solution is proving successful. The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea had already removed all its pay & display machines to go completely cashless in 2020 and had to find a long-term solution for Blue Badge holders visiting the borough.

Previously, those with a Blue Badge purchased a ticket from the machine for a nominal amount – minimum 20p – and the displayed ticket plus the Blue Badge meant that they were entitled to an hour of additional parking for free.

As the council’s cashless parking payment provider, PayByPhone worked closely with the transportation policy and parking service teams at Kensington & Chelsea, NSL, which operates the borough’s parking enforcement services, as well as the borough’s Action on Disability group and disability campaigners, to come up with a technological solution to revolutionise parking for people with disabilities.

PayByPhone has developed a new system to enable Blue Badge holders to purchase a much-reduced parking session digitally and to inform the civil enforcement officers (CEOs) in real-time that the driver was entitled to a concessionary rate and an extra hour free. The system was supported by the installation of adapted signage on-street to ensure motorists had clear guidance on how the new system worked and who was eligible. This updated information was also reflected on the council’s website.

The bespoke configuration changes have made it possible for Blue Badge holders to purchase five-minute parking sessions for each hour of parking they require and ensure that CEOs know how long the driver is entitled to be parked for. For example, if they need three hours of parking, they only pay for 15 minutes. The technology enables PayByPhone to group together locations with the same tariff in the back-end, not only simplifying the management of the system but also meaning that different tariffs at different locations, including around hospitals in the borough, would not affect how the system worked. This also ensures any applicable locations can remain under one location code for customer ease of use.

Almost five years on and the Blue Badge scheme is still running successfully. The pioneering disability parking scheme was the first of its kind in any large city across the UK and not only has set a new standard for accommodating Blue Badge holders in pay-to-park visitor bays but also has mitigated some of the misuse of physical Blue Badges.

Digital benefits

The digital parking solutions have been applied to wider public sector organisations and businesses. It is possible, for example, to charge differentiated rates for motorists who meet certain criteria, as have been done with Blue Badge holders, but could also extend to staff, key workers, GPs and carer staff, all of whom need to park across a wide range of locations across a borough to go about their daily lives, or to perform their jobs.

Rebecca Maisey is PayByPhone’s senior client director for the UK
www.paybyphone.co.uk