Westminster City Council has standardised all its CCTV traffic enforcement systems around a single platform. The council believes its new network of digital HD cameras will generate high quality images, which will minimise discard-rates and thus help reduce the number of appeals. Westminster City Council has signed a contract with Videalert and NSL, which are both part of Marston Holdings. The city council’s decision follows a 12-month pilot comparison exercise between Videalert and the

Ford and Vodafone are testing connected vehicle technology that could make it easier to find parking spaces in city centres. Their Parking Space Guidance technology displays to drivers the number of spaces offered by nearby car parks and how to get to them. “Satnavs are great at helping us to get to our destination but aren’t so useful when it comes to helping us to park there – especially in city centres,” said Tobias Wallerius, engineer, product development, Ford of Eu

Blue Badge holders can now use the AppyParking mobile app to see the availability of accessible parking bays across the City of London in real-time. The system will also allow the City of London Corporation’s parking team to see how the accessible bays are used. The occupancy of 188 accessible bays across the City is being monitored using AppyParking’s smart sensor solution, Blue Badge holders can now use the free AppyParking mobile app to not only see the locations of accessible ba

The University of Warwick has appointed SWARCO Traffic to provide technologies to manage car park occupancy across the entire campus, which is based on the outskirts of Coventry. SWARCO Traffic will supply an initial batch of 42 parking guidance signs to display parking space availability. It will also supply seven car park counters and inductive loops that record the vehicles entering and exiting the car park. The signs will be managed via SWARCO’s Zephyr solution, which enables message

Nortech has launched traffic counting software for its variable message sign (VMS) systems. NorParc is a Windows-based level counting and parking guidance system that provides centralised count management, monitoring and guidance control for parking facilities that have multiple entry and exit points. Nortech’s car park counting solutions include high-intensity signs that use low-profile LED matrices to indicate available spaces and status messages.Each VMS display panel can display coun

Q-Park has appointed APT Skidata to upgrade the parking technology at The Mailbox, a shopping and lifestyle destination in the centre of Birmingham. Q-Park was awarded a long-term lease agreement for The Mailbox’s 686-space car park in 2018. A modernisation project will align the car park with other Q-Park sites across the UK. Q-Park will be offering season tickets, online pre-booking and the Q-Park Rewards loyalty app. The Mailbox, which opened in 1998, is a redevelopment of the Royal M

A warning over the quality of steel connectors used in precast concrete structures such as car parks has been published by the watchdog body Structural-Safety. If the connectors, known as billets, are poorly made or maintained, Structural-Safety warns there is a risk of them failing. Structural-Safety is a body that works with the construction industry on safety matters. It was created by the Institution of Structural Engineers, Institution of Civil Engineers and the Health & Safety Execut

A South African company has designed a car cleaning centre with a funky interior that is also practical. The Machine WashWorx is located in Ballito, a holiday town located in KwaZulu-Natal about 40kms north of Durban. Its service covers not just the body and interior of vehicles, but also their engine bays. The company provide car owners with a relaxing space in which to enjoy a cup of coffee while waiting for their vehicle to be washed and detailed. Cars roll through a custom cleaning area th

Transport for London has announced the winners of London RoadLab, an innovation challenge to develop technology that could make roads safer and smarter during roadworks. Technology companies were invited to pitch ideas for tackling some of the biggest problems caused by roadworks last year. Nine innovative solutions were shortlisted and awarded £20,000 each. They joined a 10-week programme and worked with experts from TfL, London Councils and utilities companies to further develop produc

Three parklets have been created in the City of London’s historic Square Mile. The miniature landscaped spaces are the result of a competition organised by London Festival of Architecture (LFA) in partnership with the City of London Corporation. They are intended both to showcase fresh design talent and explore the boundaries between the individual and public realm within the City. Tamsie Thomson, director of the LFA, said: “City Parklets not only showcase London’s talented po

A blanket ban on pavement parking could lead to a need for thousands of new car parking spaces that towns and cities are simply not equipped to provide, warns road safety final IAM RoadSmart. The House of Commons Transport Committee launched an enquiry into pavement parking and invited comments from interested parties in April, to which IAM RoadSmart has delivered its conclusions. All submissions have now been released for public viewing. One suggestion that has emerged from the enquiry is a b

The number of penalty tickets issued to drivers parking on private land has increased by more than a million in just 12 months, the RAC Foundation suggests based on the latest figures. The RAC Foundation’s analysis of DVLA data for the financial year 2018-19 shows that 6.8 million sets of vehicle keeper records were released to car parking management companies. “Almost all of these will have been used to pursue motorists who are deemed to have infringed regulations in private car p

Parking is a subject that gets people hot under the collar. Social media is full of individuals and campaigners complaining about the perceived injustice of parking regulations. But it is not just parking companies and local authorities that drivers vent their frustration at. The poor parking behaviour of other motorists can be railed at via an array of ‘name & shame’ channels with charming monikers such as Parking Knobs and You Park Like a C***. One of the politer poor parking

Data on parking spaces across the UK is set to be standardised to make finding and paying for parking easier. By introducing the new standards, the government’s ambition is for all parking data released by  councils and companies across the country to use the same language, supporting the development of apps to make parking easier for drivers. The new approach was created by the Alliance for Parking Data Standards (APDS) and funded by the Department for Transport. To support the int

Car park operators and on-street enforcement teams are being asked to keep an eye out for dogs being left in cars on hot days, a situation that can prove fatal. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) receives thousands of calls each year of animals being left alone in cars on warm days. It has launched a new campaign bluntly called ‘Dogs die in hot cars’. The animal charity says many people believe it is okay to leave a dog if the windows are slightly op

The way in which fire spreads within multi-storey car parks needs to be better understood, says Structural-Safety, a body that works with the industry on safety matters concerned with the design, construction and use of structures. Structural-Safety is run by the Institution of Civil Engineers, Institution of Structural Engineers and the Health & Safety Executive. It has two entities; a committee established to maintain a continuing review of building and civil engineering matters affecting

The International Parking Community (IPC) has temporarily suspended all self-ticketing sites managed by UK Car Park Management following an investigation into allegations of improper behaviour by a ‘self-ticketer’ in Cardiff. The accredited trade association said it would also introduce a number of additional safeguards to reinforce the conditions applied to self-ticketing parking enforcement by its members. The IPC’s investigation, prompted by a BBC report, concluded that th

The east London borough of Hackney has developed a blueprint for banning motor traffic outside schools at opening and closing time, which was shared with every council in the country during national Walk to School Week. The School Streets project seeks to reclaim the roads outside schools from cars, improve air quality at the school gates and make it easier for children to walk and cycle to school. Hackney’s toolkit provides advice on how to set up, manage and enforce bans on vehicles sto

Campaign group Better Streets for Tower Hamlets installed a 'guerilla' parklet in a parking bay in East London to highlight ways of making town centres greener and healthier places. The 24-hour parklet was created without permission from the local authority on Bethnal Green Road on 19 May. Better Streets for Tower Hamlets says it wants to make streets places where people can walk and cycle in safety and comfort. It argues that streets which are full of people relaxing and socialising will boos

The finalists in the 2019 everywoman in Transport & Logistics Awards programme have been drawn from the worlds of freight, rail, retail and architecture. The 46 finalists showcase the range of opportunities being undertaken by women in an industry traditionally seen to offer manual, male-dominated jobs. This year’s awards programme will see two winners per category – one industry “Leader” with a breadth of experience and one individual at any stage of their career,

Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council is deploying a CCTV camera car to enforce parking restrictions around schools, at bus stops and pedestrian crossings. The new mobile enforcement vehicle (MEV) has been supplied by Videalert. The MEV is equipped with two roof-mounted ANPR cameras and a pair of colour cameras to capture contextual video evidence that shows drivers contravening traffic orders. The on-board systems are controlled by a council civil enforcement officer using a dashboard-mount

APCOA is offering a contactless parking experience at 200 sites across Germany. The service uses contactless entry and exit, automatic billing and app-based supporting services. The company is issuing drivers with a windscreen label that incorporates an RFID chip. When clients approach the parking garage barrier in their cars, the barrier automatically opens via the wireless technology of the RFID chip in the label and the system subsequently debits the parking fee using the client’s stor

An LED lighting fixture system that features an integrated solar panel and battery has been developed by Light Efficient Design UK. The fixture has been designed for use in outdoor car parks, transit shelters and bus stops. The all-in-one design means there is no need for trenching or wiring, as the fixture does not connect to any power feed. The fixture turns on at night automatically and can be set to either stay at 100% light output, or dim down if there is no motion in order to extend batte

Grid Smarter Cities has been selected to take part in Phase 2 of Smart Dublin and Enterprise Ireland’s SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) programme, which aims to support ‘last mile’ delivery in partnership with Dublin City Council and Belfast City Council. Newcastle-based Grid Smarter Cities has been working with Dublin City Council to better understand and analyse potential use-cases for Kerb, its intelligent kerbside management solution, in the city centre. Grid&rsq

Fear of air pollution is preventing a generation of children walking to school, says the charity Living Streets, which has launched a School Streets toolkit aimed at parents who want to prevent cars from surrounding their child’s school. Research by Living Streets indicates that two-thirds (65%) of UK parents of 4-11 year olds are concerned about the effect of air pollution on their child’s health. This marks a 17% increase on 2018 data. And two-fifths (40%) are specifically concerne

The shortlist for this year’s Parking Annual Reports by Councils (PARC) Awards has been announced. The PARC Awards recognise annual reports on local authority parking services and traffic management. This year, 2017/18 annual reports are under review. The annual competition is run by Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London (PATROL), a joint committee represents over 300 local authorities in England, outside London, and Wales. Louise Hutchison, director of PATROL, said: “The

The London Festival of Architecture and the City of London Corporation have revealed the winners of the design competition to create three parklets, which are miniature landscaped spaces. The parklets will be installed across the City when the festival returns to London’s streets in June. The parklets will be created by architects Fatkin, PARTI and Patrick McEvoy. Each practice will have a £6,500 budget to turn their designs into reality. A total of 91 teams of architects, designer

Parklet campaigner Brenda Puech was named Walking Champion 2019 by Living Streets, the UK charity for everyday walking. Puech was awarded the Charles Maher Award on 29 March at Living Streets’ National Walking Summit. The award was set up in honour of Charles Maher, a campaigner and supporter of Living Streets. Puech was recognised for transforming a parking space outside her home in east London into a mini-park, or ‘parklet’. When she created the parklet, Hackney Council ask

Campaign group London Living Streets is worried that pavements across the capital are becoming cluttered with electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. The campaign has produced a checklist designed to help local authorities identify suitable off-street locations before placing charging points on footways. “In the rush to foster demand for electric vehicles, London is letting bulky EV charging points clutter its footways,” said London Living Streets. “These installations

Caerphilly County Borough Council in Gwent, South Wales has taken over responsibility for on-street parking enforcement from the police.Since 8 April a new team of civil enforcement officers has been patrolling the area tackling inconsiderate parking. The council will use its new powers to target unlawful parking on double yellow lines, on streets around schools, at bus stops and ‘No waiting’ areas. In the run-up to the takeover 2,000 warning notices were issued by the CEOs ahead o

Parking reservation provider ParkCloud is now operating under its ParkVia brand. Up until now, the brands have operated in tandem. ParkVia is a business-to-consumer (B2C) airport parking retailer connecting drivers with parking spaces across 42 countries. ParkCloud is a business-to-business (B2B) identity used when dealing with clients such as airports and rail companies. The decision to use ParkVia followed testing on ParkCloud’s global customer base. ParkVia service currently has aro

Messagemaker Displays has appointed Lillian Zhang as their new project manager.  Zhang joins Surrey-based Messagemaker Displays from the Chinese-based LED signage specialists Chainzone Technology. One of her main projects was working on the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macau Bridge, which is the longest sea bridge in the world, stretching across a record distance of 55km. At Messagemaker Displays she will focus on variable message signs (VMS), implementing optical lenses design on the front of these

Kerbside management technology developer AppyParking’s Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) management solution is now being used by local authorities as the project progresses to real world testing. The TRO system was developed in partnership with three councils as part of an Innovate UK funded initiative. Cambridgeshire County Council, Coventry City Council and Milton Keynes Council have collaborated with product developers at AppyParking over the past nine months to create a kerbside mappin

Car parks at the Broadway shopping centre in Bexleyheath, Kent, are being refurbished by USL StructureCare. The shopping centre, which is owned by NewRiver Retail, has an annual footfall of nine million people. USL StructureCare is acting as principal contractor on the £1m project. Property manager CBRE are the client’s contract administrator on the 21-week programme, which began in January and ends in June. USL StructureCare is working in both the Broadway Shopping Centre and Broa

Art and car parks are not natural bedfellows. The association between the two would not normally go beyond provision of parking as an ancillary facility at an arts venue or festival, or commissioning some public art to beautify a car park. In Wrexham, however, the arts have been transplanted into a multi-storey car park through the conversion of some of the structure to form galleries and performance space. The local authority, Wrexham County Borough Council, has handed operation of the car park

Parking is a subject I am passionate about. It’s an essential service that facilitates the daily journeys we all undertake. Many excellent parking operators play their part for millions of motorists by providing an easy, fair and transparent experience. I am proud to say that I have worked closely with the industry over the past year and government will continue to work closely with all of you as we work on delivering the Parking (Code of Practice) Act. This Act granted government the po

The act of parking a car should be looked at as something distinct from driving, an academic will argue in a Connected Places Catapult lecture being given in London on 12 June. The free talk will be delivered by Karol Kurnicki from the Institute of Advanced Study, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick. “Cars provide us with flexible mobility, freedom, comfort and experience of progress,” said Kurnicki. “But these aspects of automobility are b

German carmaker Audi will be discussing the work it is doing developing self-parking cars at the annual Parking & Property conference. The day will also see Gatwick Airport reveal details of its upcoming trial of a parking robot that will marshal cars in one of its surface car parks.The evolution of the connected, autonomous, shared and electric cars will have a profound impact on the design and operation of car parks. A panel of architects, automotive experts and parking operators will addr

The Scottish Parliament agreed in principle to a new law to implement a nationwide footway parking ban on 4 April. Under current legislation, footway or pavement parking and double parking are not specific offences in Scotland, but section four of the Transport (Scotland) Bill voted contains provisions to prohibit these actions. The Bill replaces current laws on obstruction and pavement parking which are unenforceable. Living Streets Scotland, part of the UK charity for everyday walking has ca

Public sector outsourcing contractor Serco has launched a zero tolerance policy towards any violence, aggression and abuse directed against staff delivering front line local services. The ‘Respect and Protect’ campaign aims to reduce the increasing number of employees on Serco’s Environmental Services contract being subjected to assaults, threats, abusive and insulting behaviour by members of the public. Serco’s employees deliver a range of front line local services acr

Gatwick Airport has signed a framework contract with Stanley Robotics to trial robots that valet park passengers’ cars. The trial will run from the second half of 2019 to early 2020. In contrast to conventional valet parking, drivers do not have to hand over keys. Passengers will simply leave their car in a ‘parking station’ close to the South Terminal entrance and the driverless robot will lift up the car and store it in a secure car park. The system will also be connected t

Almost one-in-seven motorists get nervous when parking, a new survey suggests. Top of the list in the survey of British motorists is parking in a tight space, which arguably is becoming more-and-more frequent given the growing size of many family cars, SUVs and 4x4s. Coming in at second spot was parallel parking, the cause of many a driving test failure. Rounding up the top three was parking in a multi-storey car park, despite recent parking innovations like automatic number plate recognition

Parking technology company Park Assist has announced the results of a five-month long study conducted in collaboration with Brisbane Airport Corporation quantifying the impact of its camera-based smart sensor parking guidance system (PGS) on drivers using the car parks. Dr Poorvi Kaushik, Park Assist’s lead data scientist for the research, believes the study to be the first of its kind in the industry, based on the methodology used and sample size. “In addition to elevating the over

Hand gestures, head nods and thumbs-up signals all help to ensure drivers, pedestrians and cyclists know what each other is doing. But how will self driving vehicles, with no human driver, communicate with those around them? Ford has been testing one approach that uses lights to indicate what the vehicle is doing and what it will do next as part of research into a communication interface that will help autonomous vehicles seamlessly integrate with other road users. To ensure testing was as rea

One of Hull City Council’s multi-storey car parks closed for safety inspections last month. The Pryme Street car park provides around 500 spaces in the city centre. On 12 March Hull City Council issued a statement reading: “The temporary closure is to allow for investigations and repairs to be conducted.” The council advised drivers to use its other long-stay car parks available in the city centre – George Street, Osborne Street, Francis Street and Trippett Street.

Self-parking is now so common that it can be fitted to a Ford Fiesta. The technology can identify a suitable parking space, and steer the car in, while the driver controls the accelerator and brake. However, drivers are shunning self-driving systems on cars because they believe that they can do a better job themselves, research suggests. A survey by the online motor retail specialist BuyaCar.co.uk suggests that around two-thirds of drivers have tried out their car’s ‘park assist&rs

The traditional handbrake is reaching the end of the road as car manufacturers ditch it in favour of electronic parking brakes. Many premium car makers have phased out handbrakes completely, replacing them with an electronic parking brake, while others use a foot-operated parking brake. The online automotive marketplace CarGurus found just 37% of new cars on sale in the UK today come with a manually-operated handbrake. Only two mainstream manufacturers, Dacia and Suzuki, have a standard handbra

Ford is partnering with a UK delivery company to trial a new digital parcel courier service designed to help reduce congestion and offer faster deliveries. The ‘warehouse on wheels’ trial is being conducted in London with Gnewt by Menzies Distribution, an urban parcel courier specialising in zero-emission last mile delivery services. During the trial, Gnewt’s ‘last mile’ delivery service will be driven by Ford’s multi modal routing and logistics software MoDe

Personalised number plates are one way of making a statement, but for drivers of the social media age something extra is needed. How about adding emojis to the mix! This is now an option for drivers in Queensland, Australia, who can now add smiley faces to their vehicle number plates. While there are many different emojis, only positive faces are being allowed, with drivers limited to the classic smiley face, laughing out loud, winking face, cool sunglasses and heart eyes emojis. The emojis a

The regulation of parking on private land is set to undergo a transformation over the next year following the passing of a new Act of Parliament. The Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 will require private parking firms to follow a new code of practice and will see the establishment of a new independent appeals service. The new code of practice and appeals services will supersede those developed by the sector’s parking associations: the British Parking Association (BPA) and the Internat

A Private Members’ Bill that seeks to reform the regulation of parking on private land looks set to become law after successfully clearing the House of Lords. The Parking (Code of Practice) Bill, which has already passed through the House of Commons, went through the debate and committee stages of the Lords without amendments. It had its third reading in the Lords on 4 March, a procedure known as “order of commitment discharged”. The Parking (Code of Practice) Bill was propos

The North Essex Parking Partnership (NEPP) Joint Committee has set aside £50,000 funding to enable the implementation of a project designed to make parking around schools safer. The 3PR approach created no parking areas around school entrances. 3PR, which represents the three “Parking Rules of Care, Consideration and Caution”, delivers a positive message about school parking and provides advice and guidance to children, parents and carers on safe and considerate parking practi

Car-free zones are set to be trialled at seven Glasgow primary schools in a bid to improve road safety for children. The scheme will see temporary pedestrian areas created outside the seven schools for limited periods in the morning and afternoon to help ensure pupils can arrive and leave school safely. The push for the pilot programme follows a series of concerns such as poor and risky driving outside schools, obstructive parking that forces pupils onto the road as well as the issues created b

Edinburgh Airport is investing £12m in a new valet parking service, which launches this summer in a dedicated facility being built on the current surface car park. The ‘drop & go’ parking facility will feature digital booking and use CCTV systems to record the condition of cars as they are dropped off to help settle arguments about damage. Passengers will drive their cars through the new dedicated entrance where HD cameras will take 360o images of the vehicle. Cars will p

Airport parking specialist ParkCloud has extended its partner network with the FLIO airport information app.  FLIO works with a range of partners to improve passengers’ airport experience through mobile engagement. FLIO was voted one of ‘The Best Travel Apps of 2018’ by PCMag.com. The partnership with ParkCloud will allow FLIO’s app users to access ParkCloud’s inventory of 205 global airport parking locations, enabling customers to pre-book their parking prio

Airport parking reservations specialist ParkCloud has named Peter Hilton as its first chair. Hilton, whose previous role was chief executive of worldwide transport company Holiday Taxis, will act as an intermediary between ParkCloud’s shareholders and the management team, led by managing director Mark Pegler. In July 2018, ParkCloud expanded its shareholder base with investment partner, Mercia Fund Managers, which was shortly followed by the appointment of a new management team to focus t

A car park in Bournemouth town centre has been shut for two months due to a power failure. The underground car park at the Bh2 leisure venue has been closed since 28 December. It is understood that water damage caused the car park smoke extraction control panel to fail. The destination’s website states: “We apologise for the inconvenience but due to a power failure, the car park at Bh2 will be closed until further notice. Thank you for your co-operation and we will let you know when

Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London connects local authorities across England and Wales. PATROL’s primary role is to ensure that there is access to and provision for independent adjudication to its 300-plus member authorities for parking and traffic appeals in England and Wales. This is discharged through the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. PATROL also engages with Members of Parliament, government departments and the Transport Select Committee on behalf of its member authorities. We e

Parklets are a concept that developed as a protest by architects in San Francisco against the dominance of the car in urban areas. Their guerilla action spawned the annual PARK(ing) Day event, which sees parklets set up in cities across the world every September. The parklets created in kerbside parking bays by campaigners, designers and communities become social hubs decked out with greenery, games and activities. While PARK(ing) Day lasts one day a year, the parklet does not have to be a tran

As ride-share becomes more popular, councils should replace on-street parking charges with a “transaction fee” for stopping at the kerbside, believes Alastair Evanson, solution director at traffic and transportation software specialists PTV Group. Local authorities should consider the impact on revenues as kerb use shifts from parking to passenger pick-up and drop-off, Evanson told delegates at Future Streets, hosted by Arup Group and organised by Landor LINKS. “Pricing kerb u

Very little science is applied to allocating kerbside space even though it is one of the most contested places in a city, according to John Dales, director of street design firm Urban Movement. The current state of the kerbside is often a “shambles”, Dales commented at Future Streets, hosted by Arup Group and organised by Landor LINKS. “Yes, some thought does go into how long a bus cage should be, there is street work to do with loading bays and we know we need to provide some

To be respected, a parking appeals service needs consistency, independent quality control and substance. As Lord Lucas highlighted during the Second Reading of the Parking (Code of Practice) Bill in the House of Lords in January, effective quality control is a prerequisite for any appeals service. And a recurring theme throughout the parliamentary progress of Sir Greg Knight’s Private Member’s Bill is the need for consistency and fairness in parking practices and appeals. I really c

The smartphone has transformed the way in which we live, enhancing our ability to access information and services on the move. This mobile connectivity has been embraced by service providers, especially in the parking sector, with public and private sector parking operators across the UK now offering cashless parking via phones. However, there are still areas of Britain where poor signal coverage has proven to a barrier to adoption of mobile parking. This was the case in Argyll & Bute on th

Vehicles, highways, urban centres and public transport systems are evolving – fast. In fact, the pace of change is accelerating, and UK councils have the challenge to keep up. Councils face pressure from multiple fronts. On one side, they need to manage their everyday kerbside management challenges: ensuring fair and consistent enforcement that promotes the safe and expedient movement of traffic whilst also promoting and encouraging easy cashless payments for parking. And at the other end

Contemporary and 1960s car parks, school streets schemes, charity fundraisers, cycle hubs and digital payment systems make up the eclectic list winners at the British Parking Awards 2019. The British Parking Awards have been presented annually by Parking Review magazine since 2002, and the awards ceremony organised by Landor LINKS is the social highlight of the parking calendar.The ceremony was compered by the comedian Shappi Khorsandi, who revealed that in being evicted first on I’m a Cel

Structural repair materials manufacturer Sika has appointed Stuart Whitmore as infrastructure manager for the south. Whitmore will support and advise engineers and specifiers on life care service refurbishment plans for the concrete repair and structural strengthening of infrastructure projects such as bridges, car parks and wastewater treatment plants. He previously worked as Sika’s technical advisor for repair and structural strengthening products. “I am looking to expand my rol

The Fitzpark project involved the transformation of a loading bay on an urban London street into a temporary seating area, or parklet, for local residents, businesses and visitors to enjoy. The parklet on Windmill Street was jointly funded by the Invest in Arup initiative, The Fitzrovia Partnership and Clean Air Better Business (CABB) as well as from the Mayor of London’s Air Quality Fund. The parklet was in place for six months in 2017-18 and during a six-week period before and after in

The finalists of the British Parking Awards have been revealed. The short list was selected from a long list of around 120 submissions. The competition was launched by Parking Review magazine in 2002 to recognise and celebrate best practice, innovation and achievement in parking. The 2019 competition encompasses the design and construction of facilities, innovative technologies, community engagement, green thinking, individual achievement and team work. Mark Moran, editor of Parking Review and

Over 160 people gathered in Manchester for the Traffic + Parking conference. Traffic + Parking was devised by Parking Review, Landor LINKS and programme partner PATROL to build on the legacy of the long-running Parking World event. The day opened with PATROL’s chair Cllr Jamie Macrae and director Louise Hutchinson exploring the wide range of rules and regulations for which local authority parking and traffic teams are now responsible. The range of traffic initiatives is increasing, with l

People eligible for Blue Badges can apply in a fraction of the previous time, thanks to a new online service launched by the Department for Transport (DfT). The Blue Badge scheme allows disabled people to park closer to their destination than other drivers, as they are less able to take public transport or walk long distances. The new DfT service allows applicants to complete the entire process without sending their supporting documents in the post. Instead, people can upload documents, includ

Tameside Council teamed with Greater Manchester Police to organise a road safety week of events at three local schools featuring ‘Junior PCSOs’ giving errant parkers warning tickets, school talks and an Arts Award logbook on road safety. A survey of local head teachers revealed concerns over parents parking across entrances, on footways, on ‘Keep clear’ markings and obstructing crossing points. Parking with engines running also increases pollution and health problems. Ru

NCP has a target of increasing its number of sites across the UK by over 100 by the end of 2021. The past two months has so far seen NCP open new builds in Salford and Belfast. The Stanley Street car park, which opened in December, is its third car park in Salford, while the Belfast Harbour car park is third site in Belfast city centre. Between October and December 2018, the operator acquired several other sites nationwide. Six of the facilities are existing multi-storey and surface car parks

NCP is working with Greater Anglia to roll out automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology across 20 rail station car parks. The car park operator says its aim is to give customers greater control over how and when they pay for their parking by removing the need for cash and by offering choice when it comes to electronic payment methods. The ticketless ANPR technology will allow customers to pay for their parking online anytime up until midnight the day after their visit on the Great A

NCP is the operator of Belfast Harbour’s new 900-space car park, which opened on 21 January. The £20m multi-storey car park services Belfast Harbour’s £275m, mixed-use City Quays development, as well as providing parking for hotel, commuters and visitors to attractions such as the Odyssey Area. Graeme Johnston, Belfast Harbour property director, said: “Belfast Harbour believes that providing high quality parking facilities. City Quays counts well-known businesses s

The new NCP car park on Stanley Street in Salford has installed dual electric charging and disabled bays that can only be used by Blue Badge holders who are charging their electric vehicles (EVs). The idea was proposed by Helen Dolphin MBE and Libbie Bilyard, founders of the People’s Parking accreditation scheme. They came up with the idea for the dual bay when making improvements to the People’s Parking accreditation. “Within the accreditation we look at provision for electri

On Saturday 27 May 2017 part of a parking building near Eindhoven Airport collapsed while it was under construction. The building, which stood beside the entrance to the airport, was one month away from final delivery. Workers had been on the level that later gave way just a few hours before the incident. Fortunately, no workers were unharmed and no passers-by were struck by debris, some of which fell outside the perimeter of the construction site. When accidents or disasters happen in the Neth

Drivers in the UK who pay for their parking with PayByPhone can now use two additional features within the mobile app. The Maps feature allows drivers to locate parking before they leave for their destination and pin their vehicle location onto the map once they have parked, and the Nearby Parking feature provides drivers with the closest PayByPhone parking location number upon their arrival. “These latest additions allow PayByPhone to be a part of a driver’s journey from the moment

Jaguar Land Rover has developed a system that projects the direction of travel onto the road ahead of self-driving vehicles, to tell other road users what it is going to do next. The technology beams a series of projections onto the road to show the future intentions of the vehicle, for example stopping and turning left or right, as part of research into how people can develop their trust in autonomous technology. The projections, tested on autonomous pods developed by Aurrigo, feature a series

APCOA Parking staff supported an Irish children’s hospice by collecting toys. The 2018 Christmas Toy Appeal in aid of the LauraLynn Children’s Hospice, which provides palliative care to children with life-limiting conditions and their families across Ireland. Over 60 toys were collected during December along with a donation of €250 (£215). In 2018, LauraLynn provided specialised hospice care to approximately 250 children with life-limiting conditions and their families.

Local authorities are invited to submit their Annual Reports to the PATROL PARC (Parking Annual Reports by Councils) Awards for 2017/18. PATROL (Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London) is accepting reports from local authorities until Thursday 28 February 2019, with all shortlisted authorities invited to a reception at the House of Commons on 16 July. Louise Hutchison, director of PATROL, says: “Civil enforcement continues to be a headline opportunity for both local and national m

Car parks in Tyne & Wear that are at risk of flooding are being identified and signed by local authorities in partnership with the Environment Agency. The project is part of the Environment Agency’s ongoing work with local authorities to raise awareness of flood risk in communities and ensure people know how to prepare. People are being warned that driving through just 30cm of water is enough to float a car The first two areas to be identified are the Quayside in Newcastle, near the

Students from Sir William Burrough Primary School, Stepney planted a cherry tree as part of final works to the borough’s first School Street. The aim of the School Streets programme is to improve local air quality and road safety by reducing congestion and enhance children’s health and wellbeing. The council permanently closed Salmon Road, which leads up to the school, to improve road safety, help protect pupils from air pollution and create a place where children can safely play.

Pupils at Ysgol Llanllyfni in Gwynedd have made signs and delivered letters to neighbouring houses warning drivers about how flouting parking rules risks their safety. Head teacher Geraint Jones said pupils are encouraged to walk to school for their health and the environment. However, Jones is worried irresponsible parking means children cannot see oncoming traffic. “When they get to the road leading up to the school it can be dangerous for them to cross because there are cars parked wh

Leeds City Council is the first local authority to adopt a service offered by ParkBee and RingGo that opens up staff parking areas to the general public. The council is opening up new spaces for locals and visitors and generating incremental income from an existing barriered parking site on Swinegate, which can only be accessed via the RingGo cashless parking app. The solution allows the council to turn a staff-only car park into an area that the public can also use. ParkBee’s technology

Park Assist has installed a parking guidance system (PGS) at the REDI Shopping Centre in Helsinki, Finland. The new shopping centre, which opened in September 2018, features over 200 shops, 38 restaurants, a cinema, climbing arena, free-fall wind tunnel and an immersive ‘7D’ virtual theatre. The centre’s 2,000 parking spaces are provided underground in long cave tunnels. To help drivers locate available bays, each of the four levels has dynamic signage, and bays have overhead

British online parking reservation specialist has strengthened its presence in the Italian airport network with the addition of three new airports its partner family. Palermo Airport – also known as Falcone–Borsellino - is located 35km from Palermo, the capital city of the popular tourist island of Sicily. The contract will enable ParkCloud to offer its three million registered users the option of reserving their parking at Palermo Airport’s P1 and P2 on-site parking facilitie

The Project Centre has appointed Andy Brookfield as the regional director and for Manchester and the North. He will oversee the consultancy’s new Manchester office. Brookfield has over 22 years’ experience in the traffic and transport planning fields, working on both private and public sector projects. His areas of expertise include development planning, the preparation of transport assessments and masterplan schemes, car park design, travel plans, highway infrastructure business c

Parking is a dynamic sector and it’s changing more rapidly than at any time in our association’s 50-year history. In just two years it is predicted that over one million electric vehicles will be on our roads and the technology we use to manage car parks is evolving at a fast pace. As motorists become more familiar with the many different ways of searching, booking and paying for parking, it’s essential we understand their changing preferences and use the full range of technolo

The British Parking Association (BPA) said the latest annual report from POPLA (Parking on Private Land Appeals) demonstrates how an independent appeals service can deliver for both the motorist and the parking operator. The BPA launched POPLA in 2012 as the first independent appeal service for tickets issued on private land, in England and Wales. The association is working on extending POPLA into Scotland and Northern Ireland allowing motorists access to free independent appeals and hopes to de

Newcastle International Airport has revealed development plans for a £4m upgrade of car parking facilities. The plans include building a new purpose-built Premium Meet & Greet car parking facility and a new Premium Fast Track car parking area, which will include extra-wide bays and newly installed covered walkways from the car parks to the terminal. The new parking facilities are expected to be completed in time for he summer peak period. The new range of parking services are a respo

The English Cities Fund has completed the new Stanley Street multi-storey car park at its New Bailey development in Salford, Greater Manchester. The 633-space facility will be operated by NCP, which also operates the New Bailey multi-storey. The English Cities Fund is a joint venture between Muse Developments, Legal and General and Homes England. Morgan Sindall Construction & Infrastructure, the chosen contractor for this phase of the New Bailey development, built the car park. The structu

Traffic and parking management professionals will be gathering in Manchester during January to discuss issues such as the effective management of the kerbside, preparing Clean Air Zones, creating safer school streets, regulating pavement parking and the case for workplace parking levies. The Traffic + Parking conference on 22 January 2019 will be a forum in which parking and traffic management professionals from both the public and private sectors can gather to discuss the operational issues th

French parking company Indigo has sold its European subsidiaries in the UK, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia to Spain’s Saba Infraestructuras. The sale reflects Indigo’s strategy to focus on priority markets in which it holds a leading position or sees opportunity to become a major operator. Saba, a subsidiary of CriteriaCaixa group, has acquired all shares of Indigo’s companies in the UK, Germany, Czech Republic and Slovakia. The transaction became effective on 11 Decembe

The British Parking Awards 2019 recognises excellence in management, design and innovation in both the on-street and off-street parking sector. To give entrants some extra time refine submissions, the deadline for sending in entry packs has been extended to Thursday 10 January. The diverse nature of the parking sector means that the competition has categories that cover the design and upkeep of buildings, as well as ground-breaking policies, excellent services and innovative technology.&nb

Transport for London (TfL) and the London Fire Brigade (LFB) are reminding motorists not to stop in yellow box junctions. Stopping in these boxes is illegal and can cost the LFB vital time responding to emergencies.  In 2017/18, 123,071 penalty charge notices (PCNs) were issued to motorists across London for stopping in yellow box junctions. The top locations for PCNs were outside fire stations, with 16,707 motorists illegally stopping outside Wandsworth Fire Station and 12,071 outside Hom

The North Essex Parking Partnership (NEPP) has launched a parking scheme to encourage parents not to drop their children at the front gates of schools.  The Stanway Fiveways Primary School, in Colchester and the Holland Park Primary School in Clacton-on-Sea have created no parking zones, known as a ‘3PR Zone’, outside its entrance to educate parents and pupils about considerate parking practices. 3PR, which represents the three “Parking Rules of Care, Consideration and C

There can be no lower point in the world of parking management than having to experience a suicide incident involving a multi-storey car park. It makes for the bleakest of days and, personally, I feel distinctly hollowed out by such events. Each such tragedy is, of course, absolutely devastating for the individual and their own family and friends. It also adversely affects the parking staff and emergency services involved in the incident. I remember on one of my first days in the role, reviewin

A major review of fire safety in car parks is required following the blaze that destroyed a  multi-storey car park in Liverpool almost a year ago. The fire at the King’s Dock car park was used as a case study by the British Parking Association’s North West Group, which hosted a seminar on fire prevention and safety.  The meeting, which was chaired by Roy Tunstall, head of parking services at Liverpool City Council, attracted more than 40 people, including local authoriti

The Independent Appeals Service (IAS) was created to adjudicate on disputes between parking operators and consumers within the UK parking services industry. It listens to appeals involving parking charge notices issued by members of the International Parking Community (IPC). All the IAS’s adjudicators are lawyers with at least five years’ experience. The service is headed by lead adjudicator Bryn Holloway, a retired Crown Court judge. Holloway’s third annual report shows that

The International Parking Community (IPC) has unveiled a new team structure to support its members and deliver a number of new initiatives. Two new management roles have been created at the accredited trade association’s head office in Macclesfield to develop its membership and enhance its online platforms.  Vicky Jarrett, the IPC’s former compliance officer, has broadened her role and assumed new responsibilities as compliance manager. A new compliance officer will also be joi

The Environment and Traffic Adjudicators (ETA) is the independent appeals tribunal provided under the terms of the Traffic Management Act 2004. They determine civil penalty appeals relating to tickets issued by the London enforcement authorities. Each year the ETA presents a report to the statutory joint committee formed by representatives from the London boroughs, City of London Corporation and Transport for London (TfL). The purpose of the annual report is to provide the committee and the pub

Jonathan Scott, NCP’s chief financial officer, has become the organisation’s chief executive. The appointment comes as current chief executive Jo Cooper steps down after almost a decade in the job. Scott has been CFO of NCP since he joined the company in 2000. Over the past 18 years he has had key roles in the company’s restructuring, stabilisation  and return to profitability. He was also part of the management team that oversaw the sale of NCP to a partnership between l

Staff at NCP Moorfields car park have raised more than £700 for Liverpool-based national mental health charity Chasing the Stigma by rolling up their sleeves and running a regular fundraising car wash. Since June parking attendants, team leaders and managers at the car park have brandished buckets and sponges on the first Tuesday of every month. Chasing the Stigma is a national mental health charity committed to removing the fear and unnecessary stigma around mental health issues. It wor

Airport Parking and Hotels (APH) was named winner of the ‘Best Airport Parking’ category at the British Travel Awards for a ninth year running. APH, which was established in 1980, operates car parks serving Gatwick, Manchester and Birmingham Airports. APH also offers parking at all major UK airports as well as airport hotels, airport lounges and other extras, such as car hire and travel insurance, via trusted partners. Nick Caunter, managing director of Airport Parking and Hotels,

Forecasters are already predicting that temperatures this winter could drop below the seasonal averages. This, compounded by the extreme and somewhat unpredictable past winter, serves as a chilling reminder to all businesses of their responsibility to protect people from the risks of slips and falls in icy conditions.  According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), around five million days are lost each year through workplace injuries, costing the UK economy billions of pounds. Slips,

The world’s first traffic lights were installed 150 years ago outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Since then drivers the world over have got used to waiting for green.  Now technology is being developed to connect cars to traffic lights so drivers can avoid getting stuck at red and help free up traffic flow in cities. The Green Light Optimal Speed Advisory (GLOSA) system has been developed by Jaguar Land Rover to allow cars to “talk” to traffic lights and inform

Tesco and Volkswagen plans to install around 2,400 charging bays at up to 600 stores by 2020. The charging bays will be based in Tesco Extra and Superstore car parks throughout the UK, and will be installed by independent public charging network operator Pod Point.  Customers will be able to charge their electric cars using a standard 7kW fast charger for free, or benefit from the use of a rapid 50kW charger for a fee in line with the market rate. Volkswagen has two electric vehicles on t

Parking portal YourParkingSpace.co.uk has teamed up with Zap-Map to offer electric vehicle (EV) owners the opportunity to pre-booking charging sessions. Zap-Map users will be able to book YourParkingSpace.co.uk spaces where EV charging is available directly through Zap-Map’s platform for finding charge points. The partnership will see Zap-Map assist YourParkingSpace.co.uk in increasing the number of parking spaces it offers with EV charging facilities, which currently stands at 1,400 loc

SWARCO eVolt, a supplier of electric vehicle (EV) charging points, has launched an EV recharging network for is own and third party-manufactured charging stations across the UK and Europe. The SWARCO E.Connect service allows the location and live status of all charging points can be viewed online or via a dedicated app on the automated live-map. A journey planner feature enables drivers to plan their route and identify the available charging points should they need to stop and recharge. EV dri

Grid Smarter Cities’ kerbside management system won the Innovative App Award at the ITS (UK) Awards 2018. Kerb is a patented solution for managing last-mile deliveries in cities. Kerb allows commercial vehicle operators to opt to book and pay to park, load and unload on previously unavailable kerb space in urban areas or to extend loading periods in time restricted locations. Glen Davies, transport and logistics director at AtoH, put Grid Smarter Cities forward for the award. He said: &l

Local authority parking teams across the UK were among the local authority services that took to Twitter on 20 November for the seventh annual #OurDay social media marathon. The 24-hour campaign is organised by the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents 370 councils in England and Wales. The LGA encouraged councillors and local authority staff to take a couple of minutes out of their day to explain how they keep their communities running as part of the live tweetathon by using the

Pittman Traffic and Safety Equipment has secured the sole authorised distributorship for traffic safety products made by Impact Recovery Systems.   Pittman is now able to offer a new range of fully impactable bollards, delineators and lane separators. Michael Cooke, sales manager at Pittman Traffic and Safety Equipment, said: “Impact Recovery Systems is a brand with a proven track record over the last 20 years with local authorities and car park operators in both the UK and Ireland.

Croydon’s enforcement pilot scheme, developed to restrict parking and create safe pedestrian zones outside three schools in Croydon, has now been made permanent.  The council uses an ANPR system that has been designed to operate automatically in an unattended capacity during the morning and afternoon school runs.  Safety concerns had been raised by the public and the schools that led to the council trialling an experimental enforcement scheme outside three schools. The council

Leicester City Council is investing £800,000 to tackle careless parking and congestion and improve school road safety. This is the latest phase of the council’s Parking Improvement Programme, which will take place up to March 2020, and will focus on better managing, improving and enforcing car parking requirements across Leicester. The programme will focus on improving road safety outside schools, improving car parking on housing estates, tackling problematic pavement parking, expl

The roads outside four primary schools in the Royal Borough of Greenwich will close to traffic in the mornings and afternoons during term times. The School Streets initiative is designed to cut pollution and make it safer and easier for children to walk and cycle to school. The stretch of roads outside school gates will become pedestrian and cycle only zones at 8am to 9.30am and 3pm to 4pm during term time. The schools and the council will talk to parents and residents about the scheme over t

Two parking partnerships from Essex have embarked on a programme of improvements to their traffic regulations. The North and South Essex Parking Partnerships (NEPP and SEPP) are working with software solutions provider Buchanan Computing to create an accessible and interactive map-based inventory of all parking restrictions, lines and signage.  The £250,000 project includes a full roadside survey by consultant Buchanan Order Management of every on-street line, sign and parking area i

Funding has been awarded to six business groups to make deliveries more efficient and reduce congestion in London.  Transport for London (TfL) has awarded over £230,000 to schemes which will focus on consolidating deliveries, but also support cargo bike and electric vehicles. The funding from TfL’s Healthy Streets Fund for Business will be matched by the business groups. The six schemes include the promotion of cycle freight, single suppliers and co-ordination of waste collect

Technology designed to assist drivers is being misinterpreted as ”autonomous”, Thatcham Research has found. Research carried out by Thatcham shows that 71% of drivers around the world believe they can purchase a self-driving car right now. The study also showed that one in 10 drivers would be tempted to have a nap while using a so-called ‘highway assist’ system such as adaptive cruise control. The #TestingAutomation study, commissioned by Thatcham Research, Euro NCAP an

Canterbury City Council sees the digitalisation of services as a path to delivering a better and more responsive service to residents, businesses and visitors. The transformation of parking permits has been a pathfinder exercise that has set the standard for future projects across the Kent council.  Canterbury launched a dedicated digital transformation team in 2016 in a bid to explore the potential for simplifying customer transactions and improving customer service levels. The team has d

Redcar & Cleveland Borough Council has taken delivery of a new CCTV enforcement vehicle, which will be used to enforce school locations where illegal parking on the yellow ‘keep clears’ has been identified as putting children’s lives in danger.  The mobile enforcement vehicle (MEV), supplied by Videalert, has an unattended operating capability.  Cllr Bob Norton, Redcar & Cleveland cabinet member for economic growth and highways, said: “We know that mea

Landowners, developers, car park operators and constructors have to make investment decisions and we have to make practical decisions. They are asking what is happening right now and what does the future hold? There is currently a lot of uncertainty in the sector, but there are three main trends that I see having a profound effect on car park design. Firstly, how we use cars is changing. We’re seeing far more car-pooling going on and car ownership falling. Secondly, the car industry itself

Berry Systems has been awarded a £1m contract to refurbish the Merrywalks multi-storey car park in Stroud, Gloucestershire.  The car park refit is part of a £12m scheme by Dransfield Properties to transform the shopping centre. Berry is undertaking concrete repairs, structural support works, providing a new vehicle exit, walkway, landscaping and installing a waterproof flooring system. It will also refurbish existing lighting.  For the Merrywalks project Berry has worked

The multi-storey car park serving the Main Square shopping centre in Camberley town centre has been upgraded by USL StructureCare.  The 1,000-space car park is owned and operated by Surrey Heath Borough Council.  The car park is a split-level structure. Its internal decks were re-waterproofed using the DeckProtect+ system produced by USL Group company Pitchmastic PmB.  Following surface preparation works and minor repairs to the substrate, 13,000m2 of Pichmastic’s DeckPro

Paul Stock has joined Imperial as software development manager. Stock, who has 20 years experience in software development, cyber security and cloud-based technologies, will take responsibility for Imperial’s 14-strong programming and development team, which is based at the company’s head office in Bristol.  Having graduated in Computer Science, Stock has focussed exclusively on the development of software and cloud solutions for companies including Logica CMG, Evolved Intellig

The work of local authority and private sector parking professionals in supporting people with disabilities have been supporting by Disabled Motoring UK (DMUK) at its annual awards. DMUK is a national campaigning charity for disabled drivers, passengers and Blue Badge holders. It works with government and businesses to improve parking, refuelling and access provision for disabled people, so that they can access the goods and services that they need. DMUK also campaigns for and supports scooter a

Employer responsibility has been a hot topic of late, but what does this mean to the employee and what direct impact does this have to his or her working day? Many companies use the term “employer responsibility” loosely and their actions do not support their words. Historically, business has served the needs of its shareholders and aimed to squeeze every bit of profit out of the company, and that has often been at the expense of the employee. However, it could be argued that we are

‘Don’t underestimate true cost of pavement parking’: Living Streets  The cost of pavement parking vastly underestimated by councils, says Living Streets Scotland. The walking charity submitted evidence to the Scottish Parliament on the costs of the Transport (Scotland) Bill. It called for action to bring forward a national footway parking ban. The Transport (Scotland) Bill 2018 set out plans to introduce a national ban on pavement and double parking to make it easier for

Pedestrians were awarded at least £2.1m in compensation after tripping on pavements in the past year, research by the AA has revealed. The motoring association found that 10,572 people made claims against local councils, although only 859 (8%) were successful. While some councils paid compensation on more than 75% of claims, others made no payouts, despite hundreds of claims. The AA’s Freedom of Information request to 421 councils throughout the UK resulted in 365 responses, repres

A civil enforcement officer was dragged off his moped and assaulted by a gang of youths on a Birmingham street. The attack on CEO Charlie Weston, who works for Birmingham City Council’s contractor NSL, took place in the Alum Rock area of the city on 14 September. Video footage of the assault shows a group of young men abusing and stamping on the CEO, including kicking him in the throat and head.  Following the attack, Weston spent four hours at hospital but was back at work the next

Parking spaces designated for “Drug dealers only” appeared on an east London street last month as residents sought to highlight drug crime. Locals have been concerned about open drug dealing in the area so they commissioned a group of artists called the Columbia Road Cartel to launch the campaign on Sunday 17 September. Penny Creed, vice-chair of the Columbia Road Tenants and Residents’ Association said: “Eight to 10 users congregate on a street waiting for dealers to c

New research from YouGov released to mark the start of International Walk to School Monhas found the Top 10 things British parents of 4 to 11-year-olds find most annoying about the school run. Traffic congestion and pavement parking top the list of things that annoy parents about the school run, according to research conducted for Living Streets, the charity behind the Walk to School campaign,  The YouGov survey of parents of 4 to 11 year olds was released on 1 October to mark the start of

The Department for Transport (DfT) has conceded a letter that instructed councils in England to pause work on level surface street designs was targeted at town centres and not residential developments. The DfT is now working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) to clarify what it means for residential streets. The Local Transport Note 1/11: Shared Space has been temporarily withdrawn. Most observers believe the government’s request for a pause on new pro

Andrew Higginson, chairman of retailer Morrisons, has been appointed as non-executive chairman of online parking portal YourParkingSpace.co.uk. The arrival of Higginson, which is in an external capacity to his current role as chairman at Morrisons, coincides with the launch of ParkMaven.com, a cloud-based parking management platform launched by YourParkingSpace earlier this year. “It is exciting to be joining a fast-growing tech business that is set to transform the parking industry,&rdq

Many car parks have a mix of users, comprising the public, contract customers and permit holders. Parking payment and access control systems can now be configured to distinguish between different user groups using increasingly nuanced algorithms. Cheshire West & Chester Council wanted to find a way of accommodating visitors to the Delamare Street car park in the city that serves both the general public and patients and visitors to four doctor’s surgeries and a sexual health clinic.&nb

Car parks are a vital element of shopping centres, but how does parking fit into the business of retail? Insights into the running costs, tariffs, profitability and impact of technology on retail parking is provided by property services company JLL, which has just published its latest shopping centre car park survey. The UK Shopping Centre Car Parks report was compiled jointly by JLL’s retail management and automotive teams, which collated and analysed the performance of 62 shopping centre

While environmental issues do not rank high in the overall list of motorists’ major concerns, a large number are increasingly worried about the impact of vehicles on local air quality, according to the RAC Report on Motoring 2018. Only 12% of the 1,800 drivers interviewed said the environmental impact of motoring is a top-four concern this year, although this is up from 9% in 2017. However, 44% said they are more concerned about the impact of vehicles on local air quality than they were 12

Drivers are worried about the condition of the UK’s roads, the rising cost of fuel, increases in resident parking fees and the prospect of surcharges for using diesel vehicles within Clean Air Zones. However, despite such concerns, use of the car has risen significantly over the past year. These are among the findings of the RAC Report on Motoring 2018. The RAC report, now in its 30th year, provides a picture of drivers’ attitudes and opinions on topics such as the role the car plays

We now live in a world where it has become commonplace to book airline tickets, holidays, rail journeys and rental cars online. And when heading to the airport, a hotel, a concert or the train station, drivers are increasingly keen on reserving a parking space, meaning they don’t have the hassle of locating a car park at the destination and they will know in advance what their vehicle’s stay will cost. When booking a parking space, the motorist may opt to book via a destination&rsquo

Transport for West Midlands has introduced new video surveillance technology across stations and car parks to keep passengers and their cars safe. The video surveillance system is used to monitor activity at over 50 railway stations, 11 bus stations, three Midland Metro park & ride sites and the main No.11 bus route around Birmingham. The project has seen around 850 Wisenet cameras installed by Total Integrated Solutions (TIS) on behalf of Transport for West Midlands, which was set up by th

October is International Walk to School Month, an opportunity for local children to join hundreds of thousands of pupils across the globe celebrating the walk to school. In Brighton & Hove, 37 primary schools have again signed up to the national campaign, which will see more than 12,000 children take part. Some schools will be introducing Walk to School Month with an assembly on the benefits of being active on your physical and mental health, as well as being a way to reduce pollution and l

Ford, Uber and Lyft will work together to develop a universal data standard for real-time kerb demand and availability. The car-maker and ride-share companies will work with SharedStreets, Bloomberg’s ‘open transport partnership’, to develop a data platform that will make it easier for the private sector to work with cities around the world and leverage data to improve urban mobility.  The agreement seeks to provide a common standard for sharing data across all cities, wh

Over half of UK local authorities have parking problem areas and a third are experiencing an increase in illegal parking, according to a survey conducted for mobile payments specialist Passport. The sector review, carried out by Passport in partnership with survey VIGA, was designed to get a better understanding of the pressures faced by local authorities. It also reveals concerns over the impact of reduced local authority budgets and that new mobility modes such as ride-sharing and dockless cyc

The 2019 edition of the British Parking Awards is up and running. Now in its 18th year, the competition encourages both public and private sector organisations to nominate people and projects that represent the best in parking management, design and innovation. The awards encompass both the on-street and off-street sides of the parking sector. The diverse nature of the parking sector means that the competition has categories that cover the design and upkeep of buildings, as well as ground-break

Penguin Cruise Parking, which provides a park & ride service for holiday-makers sailing from Southampton docks, has received a Park Mark under the Safer Parking Scheme. Penguin Cruise Parking’s operation is based at the Marchwood Industrial Estate. Helen Cator, managing director of Penguin Parking, said: “As well as looking for great value, many passengers have told us they check to see if their chosen car park is Park Mark awarded before they book. It means something to them to

Brockton Capital, owner of the Mailbox shopping, office and lifestyle destination in Birmingham, has agreed a 35-year lease with Q-Park.  Following a competitive tender process, Q-Park was appointed by Mailbox to manage the 687-space car park on a 24/7 basis. Q-Park will take over the Mailbox’s car park operations from this month. It will introduce a new parking management system as well as services such as shoeshine machines, jump starter kits and complimentary umbrella and buggy h

Parking and reversing account for almost one in 10 serious van accidents, according to an investigation by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. Figures from the Department for Transport show there were 1,350 parking and reversing van accidents involving light commercial vehicles weighing up to 3.5 tonnes in 2016, resulting in deaths or serious and slight injuries to drivers, passengers, pedestrians or cyclists.  As well as causing injuries, accidents force vans off the road and into workshops

The UK has been experiencing a heatwave this summer, and there is every sign that the hot weather will last into autumn. A heatwave was officially declared on 22 June and the hot weather lasted through June, July and August. On 6 August the Met Office warned that the warmer than average temperatures could last until October. The record-breaking temperatures have boosted tourism but have also made life difficult, as a widespread drought has resulted in hosepipe bans, crop failures and a number of

Parking Control Management (PCM) specialises in running parking schemes for residential and commercial sites and restricted parking areas. It has adopted an openly tough approach to ensuring compliance with the parking requirements of its clients. This approach, believes PCM, has proved particularly effective in densely populated metropolitan areas, where only authorised users and permit holders have access to limited parking facilities.  The company is currently consolidating its resident

Kieran Fitsall, former head of service improvement and transformation at Westminster City Council, has joined parking technology firm AppyParking as regional director of Asia-Pacific.  Fitsall, who joins AppyParking with immediate effect, will be based in Sydney, Australia, where he will be looking at new international opportunities across Australia, China and Japan.  Fitsall will support Dan Hubert, AppyParking’s chief executive and founder, in promoting the service to local a

A new meet & greet parking service at Cardiff Airport has been developed in partnership with Excel Parking Services. Meet & Greet customers pre-book online and, on arrival at the airport, follow signs and drive straight into a designated zone.  The service uses number plae reading cameras to recognise pre-booked vehicles.?On arrival at the airport, Excel uses an ANPR International Vehicle Damage Recording System (DRS) to take a series of digital images. These images record the stat

During the heatwave, dog owners were advised not to leave their companions in parked cars as this could prove fatal. The AA and chocolatier Choccywoccydoodah joined forces to highlight the dangers of leaving dogs in hot cars, even for a few minutes.  The two companies filmed a solid 7kg white chocolate Fox Terrier named Coco, which was left inside an AA van on a slightly overcast summer’s day in July.  Within half an hour Coco showed signs of distress as his nose and mouth melt

An art competition backed by two parking companies will see students from Manchester create paintings in a city centre multi-storey. Online parking reservation provider ParkCloud and car park operator Q-Park have teamed up to promote the international PARK(ing) Day event on 21 September. ParkCloud and Q-Park have organised a competition that gives students from a number of schools and colleges across the city the opportunity to create a painted concept around the theme of ‘Manchester and

The House of Commons Library has produced a briefing paper for MPs on the operation of disabled parking policy in England. It has been written by Louise Butcher, senior policy researcher at the House of Commons Library, who has also produced a briefing paper for MPs on the operation of disabled parking policy in England. Blue Badges and parking for disabled people in England focusses on the permit scheme but also includes information on the provision of parking bays and off-street parking for di

UK-based parking information specialist Parkopedia has entered a joint venture with Chinese geospatial surveying company Zhitu Map.  The partnership will develop a suite of on-street parking services for smart cities and the automotive industry in China.  The joint venture will provide Chinese drivers with up to date on-street parking data, including space availability information, which will allow them to go directly a vacant parking space instead of circling the block searching for

InaParc is working with three other technology companies to offer an integrated management solution that connects payment terminals, automatic number plate reading camera systems and cashless transaction services. InaParc is integrating payment terminals produced by Hectronic GmbH with ANPR enforcement systems produced by ZatPark, a software as a service provider.  These systems are being married with InaParc’s latest products, which have been developed in partnership with cashless

Gemini Parking Solutions plan to train all its car park managers in First Aid. The decision was reached after Gemini evaluated its customer offering and identified that the level of interaction its car park managers have with people each day is significant.  The company wants its site managers to feel they are fully equipped with up-to-date training and knowledge for a range of circumstances, including medical emergencies. Ryan Jackson, Gemini’s founder and director, said: “As

AppyParking has announced that its new head of marketing is Garry Thornton, who previously worked at Zipcar UK, where he was tasked with changing people’s perceptions of car ownership and bringing the concept of car sharing into the UK mainstream. Thornton will support AppyParking founder Dan Hubert in raising awareness of new smart city solutions that enable cities, fleets and the general public to overcome the friction and inefficiencies of traditional parking solutions. Dan Hubert sai

An APCOA Parking site in Sheffield has launched a long-term fund raising partnership with a local hospice. Almost £1,000 for patient services has already been provided to St Luke’s Hospice through a free parking day event at The Moor car park. This event allowed people to donate to the hospice instead of paying to park.  The hospice’s branding now appears throughout the car park, which will also host the charity’s Night Strider event on 6 October.  “We a

Videalert has opened a new mobile enforcement vehicle (MEV) engineering hub in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. The facility has a fully equipped workshop for fitting out and refurbishing MEVs for the company’s customer base. Videalert’s chief executive Dave Richmond said: “This new facility will enable us to meet the growing need for multi-purpose vehicles, both cars and bikes, with the flexibility to be used for a wide range of parking and traffic management applications. It also repr

Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) is seeking a private sector partner to upgrade and expand its electric vehicle (EV) charging point infrastructure. The contract will be worth £58m over five years.  The transport body said it wishes to procure an infrastructure operation and maintenance agreement for the Greater Manchester Electric Vehicle (GMEV) programme. The deadline for expressions of interest is 24 September. The contract is set to commence on 5 April 2019. The GMEV EVCI

The advent of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) has the potential to cause major and disruptive changes to cities worldwide, claims a report by German technology group Siemens.  The Cities in the Driving Seat: Connected and Autonomous Vehicles in Urban Development report stresses the need for cities to plan early and tackle the issue in a wider context of mobility transformations. The study explores the interdependencies between urban development, public transportation policies, pow

The real world test track UK CITE consortium has started the live testing of connected vehicle infrastructure UK CITE, a project aiming to create an advanced environment for connected and autonomous driving, has entered its second phase of trials which sees connected cars being tested on public roads. The UK CITE programme is designed to create a fully connected infrastructure, using a combination of wireless technologies that can enable real-world testing in a safe and managed way. The tria

In recent years we have been on a rollercoaster ride of recession-dreading and recovery-hoping. We have had it good for a long time, with record-low interest rates fuelling a price crescendo, and even Brexit struggling to dent valuations. But good old ‘boom and bust’ demands that a correction is on the doorstep and a recession in the post. There have been warning signs: investors are de-risking and diversifying, properties selling below the mark, overheating measures increasing. A ma

It is a sad fact that violence towards civil enforcement officers (CEOs) and front line staff increases just after media frenzies such as the one between an ambulance driver and front line staff. It is important to step back and evaluate the situation calmly. The British Parking Association continues to seek better protection and respect for people delivering parking services and campaigns for a reduction in abuse and malicious behaviour towards civil enforcement officers (CEOs) and other parki

A man has been ordered by court to pay more than £6,561 after he admitted using an expired disabled Blue Badge belonging to someone else. Richard Wellesley-Cole appeared at Croydon Crown Court on 4 July where he admitted five counts of breaching Section 2 of the Fraud Act 2006, Wellesley-Cole, 54, displayed the Blue Badge in his £120,000 Porsche when he parked at two sites in Croydon. He was sentenced to pay costs of £5,061, fined £1,500 for breaching a suspended senten

Volvo has redesigned parent & childe parking space icons to celebrate the diversity of modern families. The new signage, being trialled at Westfield London, comprises icons featuring a range of family types. The trial marked the launch of the new Volvo V60 estate car.  Mike Johnstone, marketing strategy director of Volvo Car UK, said: “The introduction of the new V60 gives us the ideal opportunity to celebrate the modern family in all its guises. As the contemporary iteration of

Preston Bus Station, a massive structure that combines a bus terminus and multi-storey car park, has reopened after a major refurbishment. The building is an iconic piece of Brutalist architecture. The bus station and 1,000-space car park was designed by Keith Ingram and Charles Wilson of Building Design Partnership (BDP), engineered by Ove Arup and built by John Laing. Its façade is defined by the white ‘scallop shell’ balconies formed at the edge of the parking decks that ri

Devon County Council was named overall winner of the PARC (Parking Annual Reports by Councils) Awards at a ceremony held the Houses of Parliament. The awards, launched by Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London (PATROL) in 2009, promote and share best practice among councils in the production of parking annual reports. The competition recognises local authorities that have “articulated and communicated on parking enforcement in their area in a compelling, well-structured way”

Q-Park is to upgrade the lighting systems across its European estate under a single contract. Around 100,000 luminaires will be replaced in 200 car parks across seven countries. The operator has awarded a contract for the supply, installation and maintenance of light emitting diode (LED) lighting to Future Energy Solutions (FES).  The turnkey solution incorporates all elements of the implementation process, from survey and design, to installation, commissioning and maintenance. The roll-ou

Hectronic has taken over the on-street parking system division of Kienzle Argo. Three staff of Kienzle Argo will continue to be employed in the Berlin branch of Hectronic Vertriebs -und Service (VSG).  Kienzle Argo, which focuses on the sale and servicing of devices and systems in the automotive industry, has been a sales partner for Hectronic in Germany. The acquisition by Hectronic, Kienzle Argo completely withdraws from the parking sector. Existing customer maintenance and service con

Jason Barbour is resuming his role as managing director of Barbour Logic, which provides automated back office and public engagement solutions for the parking sector.  The move comes as Barbour Logic’s current managing director leaves the company and it also appoints a chief technology officer. In recent years Barbour has focussed on product development, with business development being managed by Fiona Deans, who been managing director since 2016.  Deans was tasked with helpin

A network of dynamic traffic signs will be installed in the Somerset town of Taunton. Ten variable message signs (VMS) will be erected at strategic locations as an intelligent parking guidance system designed to help to improve the customer parking experience and ease congestion for visitors to Taunton and the towns in the Borough of Taunton Deane. The signing network was developed by Taunton Deane Borough Council and West Somerset Council working with local consultants WSP.  Taunton was

INRIX has launched Parking Path, a navigation systems designed to help drivers on the ‘last mile’ of their journey. Parking Path combines real-time traffic, incident and parking data to guide drivers along the fastest route to available parking bays.  When drivers are approaching their destination INRIX pulls real-time data to calculate the best path to take to find parking that minimises both drive time, walk time and the cost of parking. Drivers will also have a more accurate

The England football team’s progress to the semi-finals of the FIFA World Cup won manager Gareth Southgate and his squad inspired an unusually positive mood in the country. The self-effacing Southgate opted for a low-key return home, turning down offers of parades and receptions. However, whether the waist coated one and his protégés should have no problems finding parking space when shopping, as long as they use a Lidl. Despite being a German retailer, Lidl was the Officia

Proposed legislation that will create a single code of practice for the private parking management sector is now being discussed by a committee in the House of Commons. The new code would be overseen by the government and supersede ones drawn up by the two UK parking organisations – the British Parking Association and Independent Parking Community. Adhering to the code of practice will enable parking companies to access vehicle keeper data held by DVLA when they are seeking settlement of u

A majority of people are against a UK-wide pavement parking ban, a survey undertaken by YourParkingSpace suggests. The online parking marketplace undertook the survey in the wake of the Scottish Government’s decision to proceed with a nationwide pavement parking ban. The survey of 500 people reveals that 55% of respondents do not want to stop motorists from being able to park their cars on a pavement. The YourParkingSpace research indicates that 10% of motorists park on a pavement every

“Park Smart and put children’s safety first” is the message being delivered to parents in Surrey. Surrey Heath Borough Council has teamed up with Surrey County Council and Police to encourage safer parking around schools, particularly at drop-off and pick-up times. The partnership says parking on pavements, zigzags and yellow lines surrounding schools, reduces space and visibility for drivers and pedestrians, making accidents more likely, especially at busy times.  The

Slough Borough Council has awarded Indigo a new five-year parking enforcement contract. Indigo has worked for the council since 2010. The contractor has made a commitment to employee development, sustainability and technical innovation. The company will upgrade the Berkshire town’s entire pay & display machine portfolio. It has also pledged to use only electric vehicles and bikes and launch an apprenticeship scheme. The company will replace the current fleet of vans with an electric

Eight ultra-low emission Hybrid Electric buses are now serving Leeds’ Elland Road and Temple Green park & ride sites. It is anticipated the hybrid vehicles will deliver significant fuel and C02 improvements and help reduce air pollution in the city.  The new vehicles form part of a First Leeds’ commitment to invest £71m in 284 new ultra-low emission buses for Leeds by the end of 2020. The Wrightbus HEV bus uses a parallel hybrid system that captures braking energy th

The kerbside is a transition zone between the road and pavement. There is a great deal of competition for this space, with pedestrians, drivers, freight companies, public utilities and many other organisations competing for access and use. Cities are now also having to manage growing competition for kerb access due to the rise of ride-sharing services and the growth in urban goods delivery, both of which are challenging traditional ways of managing kerb space. It is becoming increasingly clear

The streets of Glasgow are set become smarter and more attractive spaces. The Avenues programme will see key Glasgow city centre streets redesigned to protect and prioritise space for cyclists and pedestrians, improve connectivity, introduce sustainable green infrastructure through attractive streetscapes and enhancing biodiversity and improve the way public transport is accommodated. The £115m project is being funded through the Glasgow City Region City Deal. Councillor Susan Aitken, le

Ask anyone what they think about parking enforcement and the response isn’t likely to be a positive one. It’s this negative perception of parking that Gemini Parking Solutions is determined to change. Gemini has always focussed on creating positive customer service while also ensuring drivers’ compliance with parking regulations. We hope to set in motion a new way of thinking that will inspire others to challenge perceptions of the sector.  Industry-wide, there has to be

Every day millions of journeys end in a parking space. We all want to live in a cleaner, safer, less congested world, yet without effective parking management there would be chaos, and access to places and people would be significantly harder. The British Parking Association (BPA) is the recognised and leading authority within the parking sector. We have 50 years’ worth of experience. We work closely with government, stakeholders and members on driving excellence in parking for all. We do

Delivering a consistent and professional service to motorists is a key ambition for Zulfiqar Ali, the new president of the British Parking Association (BPA) on 27 June. Ali, who took up the office at a reception held at the House of Commons on 27 June, is now the voice of a parking organisation that has over 700 corporate members drawn from both the public and private sectors. Ali takes over from Peter Lowe, managing director of consultant RTA Associates. It was confirmed that John McArdle will

A team from Total Car Parks volunteered to help a nighttime charity walk in Colchester. Total Car Parks’ IT and administration departments managed the parking for the Hats and Hairdos Midnight Walk on 23 June. The 900-plus participants raised an estimated £85,000 for the St Helena Hospice, an Essex-based charity that helps people living with terminal illness and their families.  The walkers set off at 10.30pm and could follow either a 3-mile or 7.5-mile route starting and fini

To those outside parking, it must have been surprising how many issues the introduction of the new £1 coin caused last year. In this age of online banking, digital wallets and crypto-currencies, we find ourselves as an industry still operating predominantly with good old-fashioned (but highly problematic) cash. But why? Over half of all payments in the UK are now cashless – but parking has struggled to adapt to these changing preferences. Technology has the potential to make parking

The team behind the YourParkingSpace online parking market has launched ParkMaven, a cloud platform designed to enable car park providers to attract drivers, manage bookings and maximise revenue.  ParkMaven is the brainchild of YourParkingSpace founders Harrison Woods and Charles Cridland, who wanted to develop a product that could stream a single parking space listing across multiple marketing channels and then integrate data from all stages of the parking process to assist management in

Barbour Logic unveiled the next generation of its letter-generating system at Parkex 2018.  Response Master 4.0 has been totally redesigned to deliver  greater efficiencies for local authority parking teams.  The new system builds on Barbour Logic’s decade of experience of developing correspondence systems for its 65 local authority customers.  Response Master 4.0 harnesses new web development methods and usability practices to offer back office teams an “intui

Car park refurbishment specialist Cemplas has appointed Mike Wood to the role of regional manager. Wood has a background in the construction industry experience, much of which has been spent the specialist car park refurbishment sector at Makers Construction.  Tony Blencowe, Cemplas’ managing director, said: “As our business continues to grow year on year, securing the services of Mike is a big win for us. We’re delighted to have him on board.” Cemplas works acros

AppyParking, the kerbside management platform, has added Ben Boutcher-West and Minesh Naran to its team. Ben Boutcher-West is AppyParking’s new head of mobility, a role that will see him connecting cities with the automotive and navigation sectors. He previously worked as automotive lead for surface mobility solutions in Bosch’s Global Mobility team in London. Before Bosch, he was lead engineer at Jaguar Land Rover for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). Boutcher-West said:

Use of the word ‘autonomous’ in carmaker marketing and literature is lulling drivers into a false sense of security, Thatcham Research has warned.  The UK motor insurance sector’s research body is concerned about the growing number of reports of people crashing while over-relying on technology which is not yet designed to drive the car independently. Thatcham Research and the ABI (Association of British Insurers) have asked carmakers and legislators to provide greater cl

Proposals to re-design street layouts across Dublin to provide new bus and cycle lanes will require the removal of on-street parking bays and sections of front gardens. The Irish National Transport Authority (NTA) has published a discussion document - Core Bus Corridors Project - which sets out draft proposals to improve bus journey times and cycling priority along an increasing number of congested corridors in the Dublin region. The project is part of the NTA’s Government funded €2

There was a flurry of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions in the parking sector in 2017, with interest from infrastructure and private equity investors. Empark was put up for sale. Indigo-Infra Park was put up for sale. We saw the successful acquisition of Q-Park by KKR. We also saw the sale of NCP by Macquarie, which then bought Empark. This spate of M&A activity was unique. In turn, S&P Global Ratings received a huge number of calls from investors and financial advisors kee

The Netherlands is a highly urbanised country where space is always in short demand. Therefore, the country needs to use its space in a smart and inventive way. The country’s municipalities are responsible for their own parking policies. In about 150 of the 390 Dutch municipalities, anyone who wants to park must pay for a parking space. And all municipalities have regulations in place for parking places and permits for people with a disability. The municipalities decided that the key to m

Parking is one of the cornerstones of enabling ‘smart cities’ across the UK. It offers the opportunity to reduce pollution and congestion and enable new mobility solutions such as car sharing, electric vehicle and ride sharing infrastructure. But to achieve that, the UK parking sector has to modernise and enable, rather than hinder as it does today, these much-needed developments. Achieving connected transport systems are a critical part of the plans for UK smart cities and parking i

If Hercules had faced a thirteenth labour, it surely would have been parking in a crowded town centre on a Saturday afternoon. For many, parking conjures up visions of endless searching, pricey car parks and frantic dashes to feed the pay & display machine to avoid a penalty. Those days are coming to an end. A new wave of technology is ripping through the parking industry, changing the status quo and profoundly altering the parking journey and changing consumer behaviours. What does this mea

Rapid urbanisation combined with increasing demand for goods and people to be moved in large numbers and at speed means mobility matters more than ever. Logistics companies, mobility platforms and vehicle original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are competing to lead the way, and have invested some $80bn (£60bn) globally in connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs). However, the fast pace of change and wide range of trends driving investment in AV technology means identifying some short term pri

For many people, their day begins and ends in a car park. The majority of parking operators play their part by supplying an easy, fair and transparent experience for motorists. Millions of drivers park their cars without issue, and the minority that are given a parking charge notice either accept that they were in the wrong, or use the appeals system available. A few rogue operators, however, are casting a shadow over the profession by using confusing signs and scare tactics to take advantage o

Donald Shoup, the US academic widely regarded as the world’s leading thinker on parking issues, is the editor of a new book looking at the relationship between cars and cities. Parking and the City is a follow-up to Shoup’s 1996 book The High Cost of Free Parking, which showed how city parking policies often prohibit walkability, damage the economy, raise housing costs, and penalise people who cannot afford or choose not to own a car. Using a combination of analysis and creative th

The International Parking Community (IPC) has held the first of its new quarterly forums for local authority parking managers. The forum’s members include county, metropolitan and district authorities, including Birmingham City Council, Milton Keynes, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire County, and Derbyshire Dales, Wycombe District Council and Aberdeenshire. Attendees at the first meeting at the IPC’s head offices in Macclesfield, Cheshire, discussed the ability to capitalise on ANPR techn

Brighton & Hove City Council has approved additional civil enforcement officers (CEOs) to patrol the roads around schools during drop-off and pick-up times. During the last academic year, 45 schools in Brighton & Hove asked the council for enforcement visits to deal with inconsiderate and dangerous parking on school ‘keep clear’ road markings. Three additional CEOs will join the two assigned officers currently patrol streets around schools during morning and afternoon schoo

Edinburgh is to roll out a programme that allows residents to temporarily close their roads to enable children to play safely outside.  The council’s transport and environment committee unanimously approved the extension of play street events across the capital following a pilot scheme launched last year.  The Playing Out evaluation resulted in 90% of residents agreeing that the scheme had been “highly positive”.  The committee agreed to implement Playing Out

Eight local authorities have been named as finalists in PATROL’s annual search for the best local authority parking reports. Annual reports are used by councils undertaking civil parking enforcement to present their parking policies, parking information and details about performance to the general public.  PATROL (Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London) is the body that represents local authorities across England and Wales that have adopted civil enforcement. As part of its

Safety features such as automatic emergency braking and speed controls should become standard on new cars, says the European Union Commission. The EU Commission is calling for the mandatory installation of a range of safety features on new cars sold in Europe. As part of the third element of the Commission’s ‘Europe on the Move’ strategy, it is proposed that systems such as autonomous emergency braking (AEB), lane assist and intelligent speed adaptation (ISA) are fitted as sta

Drivers will be able to use remote control parking on British roads from next month under new laws introduced on 16 May. The Department for Transport says the updates will provide clarity for motorists about how the technologies can be used, and allow the increased use of features like cruise control, providing significant advantages for drivers. Changes to the Highway Code and relevant regulations were consulted on earlier this year and received overwhelming support from groups including manu

NCP has secured a 29-year lease for the multi-storey car park serving Royal Liverpool University Hospital. The 702-space facility provides spaces for hospital staff. NCP has committed to investing around £300,000 on improvements throughout the car park. There will be an upgrade of all the parking equipment, enabling it to be fully integrated with NCP’s 24/7 Customer Contact Centre. Lighting throughout the multi-storey car park will also be upgraded and replaced with LED, to offer t

Volvo Cars is partnering with Amazon to bring in-car delivery of packages to customers in the United States. The service is made available via a smartphone app that connects with the Volvo On Call service platform. The service is available to Amazon Prime members and the majority of all Volvo owners in the USA. It is has been launched in 37 cities and surrounding areas across the USA with more cities to be rolled out over time.  Atif Rafiq, chief digital officer at Volvo Cars, said: &ldqu

Mid Sussex District Council has been awarded the Disabled Parking Accreditation in 15 of its car parks.  Car parks are awarded this accreditation, created by Disabled Motoring UK, after an assessment has demonstrated it meets criteria for the provision of spaces, accessibility and clear enforcement of disabled bays. Seventeen of the Mid Sussex District Council car parks also retained their Park Marks under the Safer Parking Scheme.  Cllr Gary Marsh, portfolio holder for service deli

Shortcomings in signing mean that Coventry City Council’s city centre parking scheme is not easily understood by motorists, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT) has ruled. Instead of road markings such as double yellow lines, the RPZ scheme uses ‘gateway’ signs placed at each entry point to the city centre to inform motorists that parking is restricted at any time. Coventry City Council argued that the appellants should have realised that parking was restricted since they must h

Emerging technologies provide the key for improving mobility and delivering smarter, better and safer experiences for urban communities. But the real driver for change is coming from society itself. Technology is already helping to improve urban mobility but, today, we’re only scratching the surface. The potential of technology to truly transform the way we move in and around our towns and cities is absolutely huge. Two-thirds of adults now own a smartphone with mobile internet access and,

Online parking reservation specialist ParkCloud has agreed a deal to offer customers using Belgium’s Brussels Charleroi Airport with the option of lounge pass bookings alongside existing fast track security and pre-booked parking options.  The airport has two passenger lounges: one located in each of the two terminals. Both lounges offer complimentary drinks, snacks, reading materials and free Wi-Fi, which customers can now book through parkcloud.com.  Passengers who book a lou

Technology firm Grid Smarter Cities has made 7th place in an annual list that ranks UK companies based on their intellectual property (IP) assets and value. The 2018 IP League Table was developed by Metis Partners, a company that advises companies on how to monetise their IP. Grid develops smart city solutions and systems from its head offices at The Core in Newcastle upon Tyne.  Grid has been granted UK, European and US and other international patents in solutions relevant to parking, f

Parking technology provider JustPark has made two new appointments to its local authority team. Simon Powley brings nearly 20 years of parking experience while Ninh Hao has worked extensively with local government. They join commercial relationship manager Gavin Manger, who joined the company last year to support its move in the public sector mobile payments space. Since Autumn 2017 the company has won contracts with Cornwall, South Bedfordshire, Wrexham and Wyre Forest councils. Simon Powley

Multi-storey car parks were traditionally neglected buildings, exposed to the elements and given piecemeal, patchwork repairs until their owners were faced with structural deterioration so grave that they needed to undertake extensive remedial works or face the prospect of demolishing their facility. Over the past two decades there has been a shift towards more proactive and engaged maintenance regimes for car parks. A key influence on this sea-change was the publication Recommendations for the

In the future drivers will leave their cars at the entrance to the car park and the vehicle will set off, look for a space and park autonomously, without any stress, scratches and without wasting any time. This is the vision that some carmakers are now seriously examining. Volkswagen Group is currently testing autonomous parking in a multi-storey car park near the terminal of Hamburg Airport. The trial involves a range of Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles.  The target is for the first

CitiPark has launched ‘anytime pre-booking’ parking across its entire UK estate. Designed to make customers’ parking experience easier from start to finish, the initiative allows people to pre-book their parking through the citipark.co.uk website to ensure a space is guaranteed prior to arrival. The ‘anytime pre-booking’ service will be applicable across all CitiPark car parks in London, Manchester, Leeds and Watford. CitiPark expects the system to be popular with

The Dolphin Shopping Centre multi-storey car park has been awarded the People’s Parking accreditation by its namesake, Helen Dolphin MBE. The town centre car park, which is owned and operated by the Borough of Poole Council, has recently undergone a major refurbishment. She said: “I’m really delighted that the Dolphin Shopping Centre multi-storey car park achieved my accreditation and I hope it will encourage other car parks in Poole to follow suit.” Cllr Ian Potter, ca

The government may give councils the power to make pavement parking illegal unless they expressly grant permission, potentially landing offenders with fines of £50 or £70. The move would bring the rest of England into line with London, which has had an all-out ban on pavement parking for more than 40 years. Two years ago, the Department for Transport (DfT) suggested that a review of pavement parking would be carried out as part of a reform of measures designed to promote more cyclin

Parking & Property 2018 will look at how social and technological changes will shape the design and operation of car parks The annual Parking & Property event is the one day in the year when property, parking, transport, technology and construction experts get together to explore the interaction between cars, people and places. Parking & Property 2018, which takes place in London on 10 May, will focus on how property developers and parking operators are developing new business mode

Training and skills development does not have to be dull, in fact it can be fun. That is the mantra at Gemini Parking Solutions, which has recently embarked on using a different kind of training and development programme for staff that it feels gets the best out of employees.  Gemini Parking Solutions has adopted “experiential training” that goes against the grain of traditional classroom-based training and instead uses fun training sessions. The training is provided by the Caf

Open Parking has appointed Sharon Silcock as its business development manager with responsibility for the company’s interests in the Midlands, the North of England and Scotland. Silcock was previously a sales account manager for NCP and sales director of Parking Scheme, a company specialising in salary sacrifice parking schemes. “I’m relishing the opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of Open Parking’s refreshing approach to parking management for the benefit of organ

Universities are being invited to join a forum for sharing knowledge and best practice to improve the quality, resilience and fairness of parking arrangements for students, staff and visitors.  The International Parking Community (IPC) has launched the Education Forum to offer both city centre and campus universities a way to learn from each other’s experiences at quarterly meetings and via a dedicated online platform.  “Having insufficient parking spaces to meet demand i

A Danish technology company offering a camera-based parking management system has entered the UK market. Simplyture has opened a London office run by country manager Darren Burns, an IT specialist with a background in the retail sector. Simplyture was founded in Copenhagen in 2015 with the aim of reducing the complexity of commercial parking through the use of artificial intelligence (AI). It has developed Simplyture Parking Intelligence, a parking administration system that utilises automatic

Ford is testing a concept called ‘collaborative parking’ which uses data collected by vehicle sensors to help drivers save time when looking for parking spaces. Using a vehicle’s parking sensors, all the empty spaces are picked out and then shared with other cars to show where spots are most likely to be. The data is crowd-sourced to build a virtual map of a car park so then drivers can find an empty spot much faster than normal. The ‘collaborative parking’ conce

Essex County Council’s highways team is extending its use of bus lane CCTV enforcement to improve the reliability of public transport and the safety of pedestrians in busy urban areas. The expanded CCTV operation is being developed with enforcement solutions provider Imperial, which has worked with the county since the end of 2016.  Essex says that since it started working with Imperial there has been a marked increase in motorists complying with bus lane regulations and a dramatic i

Online parking reservation provider ParkCloud has strengthened its collaboration with Belfast International Airport by introducing ancillary revenue services to support its existing parking partnership.  ParkCloud already offers the airport’s six million annual passengers the option of reserving their parking prior to travel. It is now presenting the airport’s customers with the additional convenience of pre-booking their security fast-track and lounge passes alongside their pa

APCOA Parking Deutschland is now working with airport parking reservation specialist ParkCloud to promote on-airport parking to passengers flying from Berlin Schönefeld.  APCOA is the parking concessionaire for airport operator Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg. The deal enables ParkCloud users to book spaces at Berlin Schönefeld’s most popular parking areas located a couple of minutes’ walk from terminals A and B, comprising 820 spaces across five levels, and available 2

Rapid electrical vehicle (EV) charging points have been installed at two Euro Garages filling stations in Scotland. The Euro Garages at Lomondgate Services in West Dunbartonshire and Caird Park service station in Dundee will join the growing ChargePlace Scotland network. They feature eVolt Raption 50kW Rapid Chargers that are capable of charging two vehicles simultaneously at full power in approximately 30 minutes.  eVolt worked with delivery partner Tokheim Solutions to deliver

Q-Park has created a new offer that enables drivers of hybrid vehicles to save 25% on the standard annual season ticket price. The new Hybrid Vehicle Season Ticket is a discounted version of the company’s Unlimited Season Ticket, which gives drivers entry and exit without any restrictions seven  days a week (Monday to Sunday) and 24 hours a day at their regular Q-Park. “Q-Park is always consciously looking into innovative and future-proofing ways to improve its parking faciliti

Spanish parking system manufacturer has created a parking guidance information system to manage 2,500 bays in a car park in the Canary Islands. The car park serves the Los Alisios shopping mall in Gran Canaria, the second most populous island of the Canary Islands, an African archipelago that is part of Spain. Covering an areas of 60,000m2 and home 120 shops and restaurants, Los Alisios is the biggest mall in Gran Canaria.

Parking is a pain. It just doesn’t work. You get in your vehicle, leave your home and head to where you want to be. The route guidance technology in your car focuses on how long it is going to take to drive there and, if you have a very good system, it will be very accurate. But the sat-nav does not usually account for the parking, which is the pain. So at the end of the journey you need to allow 20 to 30 minutes to make sure you can find a parking space, put some money in a meter and the

Nottingham is an Office for Low Emission Vehicles’ funded Go Ultra Low City. The city successfully bid for £6.12m to increase the uptake of ultra low emission vehicles and become an exemplar city in this field. Some £2m from the OLEV award is being used to establish a network of around of 230 chargepoints for electric vehicles (EVs) across Nottingham, Derby and Nottinghamshire. At the moment, across the UK there is a still a legacy of the provision of chargepoints that are free

An app that enables couriers to make deliveries to car boots is being trialled at various locations around the UK. The app has been developed by CarTap, a vehicle technology company, with support from Innovate UK, a public body that helps realise the potential of new technologies, develop ideas and make them a commercial success. The app is being trialled by a vegetable supplier, builders merchant and at a staff car park. CarTap believes that delivery to vehicles offers a range of benefits to

Pavement parking is a common issue for local authorities and communities around Britain, but PATROL (Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London) suggests there may be more than one solution to solving the issue and multiple benefits to be derived.  In August 2017 a draft Transport Accessibility Action Plan was issued for public consultation by the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC). The action plan includes a section on unauthori

One of the civil enforcement sector’s key technology providers has launched a new identity to better reflect its service capabilities in traffic and environmental management and smart city applications. Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions has been rebranded as Imperial, launching a new logo format and colour branding. The new branding means the ICES acronym will no longer be used.  “It’s now well over three decades since Imperial made its first mark in systems integratio

Youth and experience were both honoured at the British Parking Awards 2018, which were held in London on Friday 9 March. The awards ceremony saw a group of six people recognised as the Young Parking Professionals of the Year. The recipients carry out a wide variety of roles, including traffic consultancy, structural engineering, project management within local government, financial control, customer and client relationships. One of the group, structural engineer Andrea Piniella from Stripe Con

NCP has secured a 35-year lease on a multi-storey car park at New Bailey in Salford, Greater Manchester, adding 633 spaces to the new riverside development. This will be the second multi-storey car park that NCP will operate within New Bailey, having agreed the lease of a 620-space multi-storey car park in December 2014 with English Cities Fund (ECf). Following the completion of the first New Bailey car park in 2014, demand for parking has continued to grow, largely due to the regeneration an

Automated valet parking systems are among 22 projects that will be supported through the latest round of government connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) funding. Some £22.4m of funding was announced by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. The grants are being managed by the Centre for Connected & Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV). Autonomous valet parking systems (AVP) allow drivers to leave their car at their final destination and the car will park itself. Parko

Parking apps, sensors, empty space mapping and bay reservation systems are among the technologies competing for recognition in a European transport innovation awards. A jury of international transportation experts has selected the shortlist of nominees of the biennial Intertraffic Amsterdam Innovation Awards. A field of 60 entries has been narrowed down to the final 15, leaving three nominees in each of the five categories: Infrastructure, Parking, Safety, Smart Mobility and Traffic M

German technology group Bosch has launched a new Connected Mobility Solutions division. Bosch Connected Mobility Solutions will bring together over 600 people from across the group to develop and sell digital mobility services. These include vehicle sharing, ridesharing and connectivity-based services for car drivers. “Connectivity will fundamentally change how we get from A to B, and in the process it will help to solve today’s traffic problems. We are using it to realise our visio

The British Parking Awards 2018 attracted around 100 entries from across the country, from which a short list of finalists has been selected. The entries have been assessed by a panel of experts made up of parking managers, transport and parking consultants, representatives from the major parking associations and bodies representing the motoring and freight sectors. The winners will be revealed at a gala lunch to be held in London on 9 March. To see the list of finalists click here The diverse

The Training & Development Academy, launched in partnership by the IPC and TRACE Training, is now delivering half-day and full-day courses across the country as well as skills development programmes. The academy is designed to develop workforce skills and competencies for any parking services provider. Since being launched at the IPC’s annual conference last November, the Training & Development Academy has delivered courses on the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), skills

I first started working in the parking industry as a parking attendant in 1999, on a three-month contract, enforcing the on-street restrictions in the Heritage City of Bath. In the 19 years since then, almost everyone I’ve encountered has expressed an opinion on parking, especially on the money councils make from it. The common refrain is: “It’s not the money, it’s the principle…” Anyone that has worked in parking for any length of time is likely to have hea

ParkCloud is a UK company serving the international airport parking market. Founded in 2008 as an online parking reservation service, over the past decade its three founders now operate a business that employs over 20 members of staff. ParkCloud works across 40 countries, with a client base that now stands at over 1,000 parking operators around the world, and ranges from international airports and parking management groups to local city councils, port authorities and private companies. Its book

PayByPhone will be offering drivers in the UK a ‘one touch’ parking experiencing via Apple Pay. The Apple Pay service is already offered by PayByPhone in France and the USA. It claims to be the first phone parking provider to offer Apple Pay in Britain. Now drivers parking in selected UK towns, cities and campus sites will automatically default to Apple Pay if their device is already set up to make payments using the service. The option to change payment methods remains, giving user

Drivers are now being asked to turn off their engines when parked in the London Borough of Southwark. Civil enforcement officers (CEOs) are engaging with drivers of cars, buses, taxis and HGVs whose engines are idling. Failure to comply will incur an £80 penalty charge notice (PCN). Southwark cabinet member for public health and regeneration, Maisie Anderson, said: “Needlessly keeping your engine running pollutes roads, schools and children’s lungs. Asking people to turn off t

Communities secretary Sajid Javid has confirmed that government will support new legislation aimed at raising standards in the industry. The government is supporting a Private Member’s Bill that is due to have its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday 2 February. Sajid Javid said: “For too long drivers have suffered from unjust fines at the hands of dodgy parking firms. We need a f

Trials of an online shopping service that delivers straight to cars is to be run in Barcelona by Spanish car-maker SEAT in partnership with car park operator Saba. Droppit is an app that allows people to place a shopping order at a virtual supermarket and have it delivered directly to their car while it is parked in a car park. Droppit is available for both iOS and Android. The six-month Barcelona pilot will managed by Saba in car parks on Carrer Pau Casals and Carrer Lluís Companys. The

Online parking reservation specialist ParkCloud has appointed three new members to its head office team in Manchester.  Marketing analyst Elvan Bagci brings more than 15 years’ experience from her previous role at Information Tools. Bagci is a data specialist who has worked with clients including Microsoft on marketing campaigns through analysing and manipulating numbers, trends and complex data. Bagci will apply her analytical skills to understanding how ParkCloud’s near thre

Pictures and a video have been released showing for the aftermath of the fire at Liverpool’s Waterfront Car Park. The New Year’s Eve blaze lasted almost 12 hours and took more than 20 fire crews to bring under control. Unprecedented in its nature, the fire spread throughout the multi-storey car park, which sits within the ACC Liverpool complex, causing extensive damage that the insurance industry estimates will result in claims worth more than £20m. Liverpool City Council is

The British Parking Awards 2018 have attracted around 100 entries from across the country. The annual awards encourage both public and private sector organisations to nominate people and projects that represent the best in parking management, design and innovation. The diverse nature of the parking sector means that the competition encompasses buildings, technology and people. The British Parking Awards spans both the on-street and off-street sides of the parking sector. This year’s entr

Online payments in Central Bedfordshire Council’s pay & display car parks are now being managed by JustPark. The online parking provider took over the contract from current provider RingGo on 16 January. It is now running mobile payments across Dunstable, Flitwick and Leighton Buzzard.  “Moving the service to the JustPark app will see drivers benefit from a range of new features, including being able to search for a vacant parking space in any of the pay & display car p

Online parking reservation provider ParkCloud has added two French airports - Lyon–Saint Exupéry and Nice Côte d'Azur – to its portfolio. Two of Lyon–Saint Exupéry Airport's on-site parking facilities are now available through ParkCloud's network, offering drivers using car parks P4 and P5 the benefit of reserving their parking before they travel. P4 is aimed at business travellers or those travelling short term, with open air parking that can be

Learning how to reverse properly dominates the list of New Year’s resolutions for drivers, according to a survey by a driving school. After remembering to check tyre and oil pressure regularly, three of the things drivers said they most wanted to become better at doing related to parking. Learning how to parallel park properly is second on the list, with 17% of drivers wanting to perfect the skill. To “get better at reversing” was something one in seven felt they needed to do

Open Parking has appointed Justin Ben-Nathan as business development manager. Open Parking is the operational arm of Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions. Its portfolio includes to hospitals, universities, retail parks, shopping malls, leisure centres, transport hubs, residential and office developments. Ben-Nathan was formerly national sales executive at APCOA Parking, where he previously held a number of business development and commercial management roles working with clients such as Networ

The International Parking Community (IPC) is taking steps to develop its membership support services and online resources. The move will see the accredited trade association introduce a programme of service developments and new online platforms to meet the specific needs of private parking operators, universities and local authorities as well as other corporate members.  The IPC’s chief operating officer Charles Clowes has confirmed plans to recruit a head of membership to oversee th

A Scottish politician has launched a consultation on legislation that he hopes will clarify on the way privately operated car parks are enforced. Murdo Fraser, a member of the Scottish Parliament, says he has received hundreds of complaints about private parking penalty notices. The Conservative MSP wants to introduce a Member’s Bill in the Scottish Parliament that will provide greater consistency and transparency.  The consultation will last for three months. Parking tickets issued

Brighton & Hove City Council is tasking one of its civil enforcement officers (CEOs) with focussing on inconsiderate parking that obstructs buses in a bid to improve air quality by keeping services moving. The CEO works for the city council via contractor NSL. The officer selected has worked as a CEO in the city for the last nine years but has tended to focus on checking car permits. The CEO’s new role includes ensuring bus stops have the correct instructions for cars and, in turn, t

When Cambridge City Council decided to refurbish three of its high use multi-storey car parks it invested a lot of time in planning ways to minimise disruption to the general public, businesses and the city centre as a whole. The planning and pre-risk analysis work paid off with  the project starting on 15 May 2017. It had originally been anticipated that these works would run into late September, but adopting a due diligence approach, clear communications and effective contract management

Newcastle City Council has awarded parking IT company Imperial a new contract that covers the digitisation of permit services.  Imperial has been working with Newcastle for the past decade. The new contract with Imperial is for an initial period of five years, with the option for two further extensions. Craig Mordue, service manager, parking services, said: “The new contract we have now signed with the company will see the introduction of new smartphone technologies fitted with Rialt

Following earlier volunteer projects in Kenya, Cameroon and Uganda, UK parking professional Clive Hawthorn is returning to Africa in February to help deliver important health messages and support local communities in Rwanda. A keen cricketer and an active volunteer for the Cricket Without Boundaries (CWB) charity, Hawthorn is organising a fortnight visit to the east African country as it continues to recover from years of ethnic conflict and severe community health issues. He will be leading a

A fire at a multi-storey car park in Liverpool destroyed up to 1,400 vehicles, forcing many people to spend New Year’s Eve in a temporary shelter. The fire started at around 4.40pm in the King’s Dock car park, which is adjacent to the Liverpool Echo Arena, part of the Arena and Convention Centre (ACC) Liverpool complex.  It appears flames from a blaze in one car spread to other vehicles around it, and then to cars parked on other decks.  Over 20 fire engines attended the

INRIX has introduced a system  that enables ultrasonic sensors (USS) fitted in modern vehicles to capture real-time parking occupancy information. The USS data will be used to enhance the INRIX Parking platform.  Ultrasonic sensors, commonly referred to as ‘parking sensors’, have already been used in cars for several years to help drivers avoid bumping into objects when parking. These sensors project sound waves to detect the proximity of objects and alert drivers when the

Four national organisations have written to transport minister Jesse Norman urging him to prohibit pavement parking across England and Wales after what they regard as years of inaction from the government.  Living Streets, Guide Dogs, the British Parking Association (BPA) and the Local Government Association (LGA) have co-authored a letter highlighting the danger they say pavement parking poses to vulnerable pedestrians.  The organisations argue that people living with sight loss or

Europe’s car parking infrastructure is undergoing significant growth. In the past year, four of the largest operators have been put up for sale, while mergers and acquisitions activities are commanding high prices. These are core observations by credit ratings agency S&P Global Ratings in a new report on the sector’s growth potential. However, the ratings agency’s report concludes that, while the current flurry of deals seems promising, the future looks far less certain fo

The winners of the British Parking Awards 2018 will be revealed at a gala ceremony held in London during March by the comedian Lucy Porter. The competition is free to enter and, as is now traditional, the deadline for submissions has been extended to Monday 8 January. According to Time Out, Lucy Porter “is one of the most talented comics on the circuit”. Having had 11 Edinburgh Fringe shows and international tours, Lucy is a well-established and loved comedian. On TV, she has

We are passionate about parking annual reports at Brighton & Hove City Council. We have been producing them since 2008 and were fortunate enough to win the very first PATROL PARC Award, and have been shortlisted for the past eight years, winning the last two awards. Annual reports are an excellent way to communicate key facts about your parking team’s performance and priorities to stakeholders. Annual reports also let you explain how parking services fit into wider traffic management,

Historically, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT) offered telephone hearings, personal hearings and postal cases. Motorists can now appeal through the tribunal’s website thanks to the development of FOAM (Fast Online Appeal Management).  Rather than filling out a paper form, as they used to, motorists can now create an account online and raise an appeal. FOAM is a transparent process so the appellant can follow the process right the way through, resulting in a better understanding of t

The principal objective of PATROL (Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London) is to provide independent adjudication to its member authorities for parking and traffic appeals in England and Wales excluding the London authorities. This is delivered through the Traffic Penalty Tribunal.   With 310 members, PATROL ranks as one of the largest Joint Committees across England and Wales because of the devolved nature of traffic regulations. PATROL has used its economies of scale to invest in

When I was interviewed in 1992 to be the very first parking adjudicator for the new decriminalised enforcement scheme in London, I said that my first objective was to have the best tribunal in the country, and my second was to have no work.  I think the Traffic Penalty Tribunal is now perhaps the most advanced tribunal in the country, something the Courts & Tribunals Service agree with, especially regarding our technology. But we are still busy. When I said I hoped there would be no wor

The economics of parking are very complex because we are at the interface between what is a public service and what is a commercial product. Much of parking is based in the public sector either because it is on the public highway or it is under local authority control. In the public sector there are politics involved, usually with a small ‘p’, but sometimes a capital ‘P’, which does complicate the issue. On the other side, a lot of aspects of how we manage parking are en

Almost 17,500 appeals against parking charges issued on private land were heard by the Independent Appeals Service (IAS) last year. The service provides motorists with independent redress in matters concerning the issue of a private parking charge by members of the International Parking Community’s Approved Operator Scheme. The appeals are adjudicated on by a panel of independent, practicing solicitors and barristers. The lead adjudicator is Bryn Holloway, a barrister, who has just publish

Parking operators are increasingly engaging with motorists in the digital domain, and this is something that their representative bodies will also have to do. This was a key message delivered by the International Parking Community (IPC) at its 2017 annual conference.  IPC chief executive Will Hurley urged delegates to embrace new technologies and new opportunities with confidence. “Recognising responsibilities and securing the insight required to take change in one’s stride are

Kettering General Hospital’s new car parking deck opened on 1 December. The new deck provides 240 additional car parking spaces in the hospital’s Car Park B – boosting that car park’s overall capacity to 471. The steel-framed deck was manufactured and erected by Fast Park System. CP Plus took over management of the Northamptonshire trust’s car parks from 16 October. The trust has reduced charges for patients parking for less than four hours and introduced automati

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) in Dubai has launched the initial phase of a smart parking project covering controlled parking at Al-Rigga and the World Trade Centre areas. The real-time occupancy information of sub-zones in Rigga area is displayed in the RTA app that also allows payment of parking fees without the additional charge for SMS. Parking sensors are being used to provide real-time parking information. The project has been implemented by

West Midlands Ambulance Service tweeted a note telling paramedics attending an emergency not to park their “van” across a driveway. The note was left on an ambulance windscreen by a resident of the Small Heath area of Birmingham. It read: “You may be saving lives, but don’t park your van in a stupid place and block my drive.” The West Midlands Ambulance Service Twitter account said: “Sometimes we just don’t know what to say. This was the note left on an

Airport Parking and Hotels (APH) was named as the ‘Best Airport Parking Company’ for an eighth year running at the annual British Travel Awards. APH offers parking at UK airports as well as airport hotels and airport lounges. The British Travel Awards are a purely consumer voted awards. This year nearly 360,000 consumers registered to place their votes, with 722,473 votes and opinions cast between 3 July and September 2017.

An app that helps drivers find available parking spaces has gone live in Cardiff. City of Cardiff Council has installed 3,300 sensors in paid and disabled parking bays. The vehicle detection sensors are embedded into the road and detect whether or not the parking bay is occupied using infrared technology. The sensors provide the occupancy data that is relayed to drivers via the Park Cardiff app. The app and sensor system has been developed and installed by Smart Parking. Caro Wild, cabinet mem

Online parking reservation provider ParkCloud has signed partnership with Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands. ParkCloud will offer pre-bookable onsite parking at Eindhoven Airport’s five car park sites, which are located at various locations around the terminal  Eindhoven is the second largest airport in The Netherlands, handling flights to 75 mainly European destinations through a variety of airlines.  Jaap Verheijen, account manager for parking and mobility servi

The winners of the British Parking Awards 2018 will be revealed on Friday 8 March by the comedian Lucy Porter. Parking Review launched the British Parking Awards in 2002. Now in their 17th year, the annual competition encourages both public and private sector organisations to nominate people and projects that represent the best in parking management, design and innovation. The competition is 

A new car park reception building has been opened at Bristol Airport. The building is the centrepiece of a £2.5m investment in the Silver Zone car park. The reception building has been expanded to meet expected demand next summer.  Thousands of people use the car park reception building each day. It also hosts up to 50 staff from the airport’s ground transportation team. The new two-storey structure has been designed to create a more positive first and last impression for passe

In a world where customer experience is king, airlines have been improving their aircraft, whilst airport operators have focused on terminals. Both have invested heavily in services to make the journey better, but often the start and end of a journey is forgotten – the parts that can be the most stressful, and can make or break the overall experience. That is why car parks are a vital element in the overall experience. Car parking is an important revenue earner, as the annual parking earn

A failing waterproof system on a car park resulted in water working its way into the supermarket below. The car park at the Morrison’s store in Herne Bay, Kent, is located on the roof of the retail store itself. The car park is split over two levels providing approximately 80 spaces.  The existing asphalt waterproof wearing surface of the car park had become damaged and split over the years, allowing significant water ingress into the store.  Wm Morrison Supermarkets appointed

A property services company says it has identified around 10,500 car parks in the UK’s towns and cities that could be developed to accommodate over 350,000 homes, enough to house around one million people. “Over the past 15 years several crucial demographic changes have begun to take hold which are having a dramatic impact on the adequate provision of housing in the UK,” said Nick Whitten, JLL’s director of UK research. “A trend towards urban living has disproport

Holiday Extras has acquired Purple Parking’s brand and website after the airport parking specialist went into administration. Purple Parking, which operates off-airport car parks around the UK, called in administrators after being amassing debts in the region of £2m. The deal was completed via a pre-packaged administration sale following Purple Parking’s inability to secure a buyer for the whole business. Duff and Phelps are now the appointed administrators. Established in 1

Tesco has become the first supermarket company to adopt the Disabled Parking Accreditation (DPA), developed by Disabled Motoring UK. The DPA is a not-for-profit accreditation that focuses on improving the personal mobility of disabled motorists by recognising off-street parking facilities that are accessible to disabled people. It also identifies car park operators that actively set out to manage and reduce the abuse of parking spaces provided for disabled motorists. The DPA is managed for Dis

Over half of UK shoppers say they would never return to a retail site if they had previously had a poor parking experience there, according to car parks operator NCP. When asked why they might postpone or cancel a visit, NCP found that 55% of these “lost customers” were concerned that they would not be able to find a space in which to park.  A further 39% said a concern that either their car or they would be unsafe in the car park would prevent them from visiting, while 42% wo

An NHS trust has teamed up with a procurement company to offer the public sector a comprehensive package of car park development services. Procurement firm Pagabo has developed the four-year framework for the design, build, finance and operation (DBFO) of car park projects. Simon Toplass, chief executive officer of Pagabo, said: “The Total Car Park Solutions Framework offers flexible solutions across the board. As far as we know there is no other framework available for a solution like ou

Car park operator NCP has announced an aggressive three-year expansion plan with the aim of increasing its estate by over 100 new sites. The company is actively seeking to grow its property portfolio from the current number of 500 sites by taking on new leases, as well as operations and management contracts for existing and new car parks across a number of key areas. In addition, NCP said it may expand through the purchase of new and existing car parks and land for the construction of new, who

Parking technology company JustPark has appointed Gavin Manger as its new commercial relationship manager to bolster its efforts in taking on cashless payments contracts for local authorities. JustPark offers drivers a parking booking and payment service. In recent years it has expanded its portfolio from domestic driveway parking to include commercial and local authority car parks. The company now also offers drive-up cashless payments via a mobile app and interactive voice recognition (IVR) p

Up to 12m driving licence holders receive a penalty notice each year, meaning that maybe as many as a third of Britain’s 40m drivers are now penalised annually, suggests new research produced for the RAC Foundation. The extent of traffic and parking enforcement by the police and local authorities is highlighted in a report, Automated Road Traffic Enforcement: Regulation, Governance and Use, produced by Dr Adam Snow, a lecturer in criminology at Liverpool Hope University. Camera-based

Civil enforcement officers patrolling the streets of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea are now riding electric bikes as an alternative to petrol-powered mopeds. An electric bike, or e-bike, is a bicycle with an integrated electric motor that can be used for propulsion. E-bikes retain the ability to be pedalled by the rider and are therefore not electric motorcycles. NSL, the council’s parking service provider, says switching to e-bikes makes both economic and environmental se

Q: How will self-driving cars change the way in which towns and cities manage parking? Q: How can local authorities create electric vehicle charging facilities that are both environmentally and financially sustainable? Q: Will local authority parking teams be key players in tackling poor air quality caused by vehicle pollution in town and city centres? Q: What are the data protection rules that apply when rolling out cashless payment, virtual permits and other digital parking services? Q: Ho

A man who tried to run over a teacher after being told that he could not park in a school car park to pick up his partner’s daughter has been jailed for 10 months. Rainer Schoeman, 22, rammed the teacher sending him flying over the bonnet of his Volkswagen Golf and nearly knocked two children off their bikes. The incident happened at 3pm on 20 February. Schoeman was picking up the child from The Winston Churchill School in Woking, Surrey, when he stopped to speak to a teacher, Gareth McC

John McArdle has joined Grid Smarter Cities, a company that is developing new ways of managing the urban realm, including the provision of virtual loading bays for delivery vehicles. McArdle has worked in parking and traffic management since 1979, when he joined Strathclyde Regional Council’s Traffic Order section. He became parking manager for the Glasgow area, a role he served in until 1992 when he became manager of Westminster City Council’s car parks business unit. In 1995 he b

ZatPark, a cloud-based parking management system specialist, has appointed Celina Herbert as customer experience manager. She joins the company as it implements the next phase of their strategic growth plan. Her background has been in the recruitment sector, including roles as a regional director at Kelly Services, manager at Right4Staff and as a director of Sarah West Recruitment. She said: “I am looking forwarded to working with our clients to understand the challenges that they face.

Harry Clarke has stepped down from his role of chief commercial officer (CCO) at Parkmobile Group Europe. It is 20 years since he entered the parking industry by setting up Cobalt Telephone Technologies with an Automobile Association colleague in a Portakabin in an Esher car park.   Cobalt began by using interactive voice recognition technology to enable local authorities to offer 24/7 self-service penalty charge notice payments.  Cobalt then developed RingGo for on-street and off-st

B4 Car Park in Birmingham seeks to make parking an enjoyable experience not only by offering a clean and bright environment, but also service with a human face and a membership scheme that takes the hassle out of paying. The fact that the car park has amassed a brace of awards, including a British Parking Award, European Parking Standard Award, Disabled Parking Accreditation and a Park Mark, indicates that the teams who designed it and manage it are doing something right. The car park is the br

Manchester City Council reduced the service charge for using the PayByPhone service to 5p on 1 September. The fee was previously 10p or 20p, depending on where you parked. PayByPhone is now available at over 200 on-street parking locations around the city. “The council hopes the reduction will encourage more drivers to adopt cashless parking and benefit from the exclusive features or being able to extend their parking from anywhere, meaning they can spend more time enjoying the city,&rdquo

PayByPhone recently ran its annual customer satisfaction survey in Brighton. Looking at the results, it’s clear this method of payment is becoming more and more popular. PayByPhone has seen record transactions this year in Brighton & Hove. With continuous improvements to the app, it has become the most popular way to pay with just over 80% of customers using it.  Ease of use was rated a 7.8/10 and 73% of those surveyed would recommend PayByPhone to a friend or colleague. The mos

Motorists have serious concerns about the poor practices of some private parking companies, says motoring organisation the RAC. The motoring body’s annual report calls for legislation to curb what it regards as the excesses of some private parking operators. The RAC’s 2017 Report on Motoring covers a wide range of subjects including rising costs of motoring, speed limits, potential impact of diesels on air quality and health, and the poor state of local roads. The report is based o

The renovation of Wolverhampton Civic Centre’s basement parking areas has been shortlisted for an annual concrete industry awards. The car park project is one of three schemes shortlisted for the Structural Concrete Alliance 2017 Structural Concrete Alliance Award for Repair and Refurbishment.  VolkerLaser delivered a repair and protection scheme for the 40-year-old reinforced concrete Wolverhampton Civic Centre Car Park, which had been plagued with defects for years, including delam

Q-Park is offering customers the chance to give their car a full vehicle service while they visit Glasgow city centre. The scheme is being run in partnership with E for Express, which will operate a fully-staffed reception at Q-Park’s Glasgow city centre facility on Waterloo Street. Services need to be booked in advance. Customers arrive and park in the usual way, dropping their ticket and keys in the reception area, which is located on Waterloo Street by the vehicle entrance. An experi

The International Parking Community (IPC) has formalised its partnership with the People’s Parking accreditation scheme for car parks. The accreditation scheme is now being adopted as an IPC standard, and the scheme’s founder, Helen Dolphin will be representing the evolving interests of consumers for the IPC’s steering committee. The scheme highlights car parks that provide spaces for visitors with a disability and parents with children. It also promotes charging points for e

School crossing patrols in West Sussex are being issued with body-worn cameras in a bid to deter inconsiderate driving and encourage more parents to walk their children to school.  The River Beach Primary in Littlehampton has become the seventh school in the county to trial the body cameras. Michelle Padwick, who has been the school’s crossing patrol for nearly four years, said all the parents she had spoken to had been supportive of the camera scheme. “I think it will definit

Autonomous vehicles are likely to deliver a wide range of social and economic benefits, including a reduction in deaths and injuries due to collisions. However, issues such as assigning who is liable for injury and repair costs will have to be resolved as experience of driverless vehicles is accumulated, a government report suggests.   The Government Actuary’s Department (GAD), which assesses risk for central and local government, has produced a paper called

Drivers overwhelmingly support government regulation of the private parking sector, says the RAC. Almost three-quarters (73%) of members of the RAC Opinion Panel said they see an end to the sector ‘self-policing’ through membership of a trade association. The survey showed that 73% of motorists understand that penalty charges may be necessary, but generally feel they are excessive or disproportionate for the level of parking contravention. Of the remainder, a fifth (21%) claim that

The active enforcement of supermarket parking bays designated for people with disabilities reduces their misuse, reveals a survey conducted by the charity Disabled Motoring UK (DMUK). Overall levels of disabled parking abuse came in at 18.5% across the supermarkets surveyed. Where enforcement was used this figure fell to 15.6% and where no enforcement was evident the overall level of observed abuse rose to 21.5%. The supermarket with the lowest levels of disabled parking abuse was Sainsbury&rs

Parking Review magazine has launched the 2018 edition of the British Parking Awards. Now in their 17th year, the competition encourages both public and private sector organisations to nominate people and projects that represent the best in parking management, design and innovation. The awards encompass both the on-street and off-street sides of the parking sector. The diverse nature of the parking sector means that the competition has categories that cover buildings, technology and people. Bri

The public support fining motorists who abuse parent & child parking bays at supermarkets, a survey suggests. There was also support for use of temporary bans where motorists use parent-and-child parking spaces when they do not have a child in the car. Some 500 people took part in the survey, conducted by online parking marketplace YourParkingSpace. While a third of respondents backed fines of up to £25, a quarter wanted to see fines of more than £25. One-in-ten actually wanted

Three Cambridge City Council multi-storey car parks reopened at the start of August following the completion of the main elements of a programme of essential improvements. The improvement works at the Grand Arcade, Grafton East and Queen Anne Terrace car parks are part of a £1.2m investment programme. The work was finished ahead of schedule as the expected completion date was in late September. The main contractor on the project was Makers Construction.  The bulk of the works took

Collaboration and communication will be central to the development of a more public profile for the International Parking Community (IPC), a trade organisation that counts private and public sector providers among its members. The IPC has formalised its vision, values and core purpose as it takes steps to achieve an increasingly influential position within the industry. The values have been developed by the IPC’s executive in collaboration with the association’s steering group. The I

Many local authorities and private parking operators now outsource the processing of penalties issued by their enforcement teams to specialist bureaus such as Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions’ Business Processing Unit (BPU). The unit, which is located in Northampton, processes penalty charge notices (PCNs) and fixed penalty notices (FPNs) on behalf of city, county and district councils. It also processes parking charge notices issued on private land by The Forestry Commission and univ

Norwich was the first city in the UK to introduce a pedestrianised street in the late 1960s and, in recent years, moves have been made to limit through-traffic in other central areas. Bruce Bentley, Norwich City Council’s principal transportation planner, says reducing through-traffic has enhanced the experience of shoppers and visitors. This, in turn, is encouraging new investment in the city centre. “Removing general traffic from congested medieval streets and ensuring the centre

Local authorities across England and Wales can now add their traffic regulation orders (TROs) to an online database hosted by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal (TPT). Councils create TROs to apply traffic management controls to their roads and car parks.  TROs specify parking restrictions and the conditions under which vehicles may park. Bus lanes are also created by TROs.  The TPT currently hosts 19,000 TROs in its TRO library on behalf of local authorities.  The TROs can be ac

E-STOR and Renault create quick-charge stops for locations with poor grid connectivity A system that uses ‘second life’ electric car batteries as stationary power sources which can provide rapid roadside charging for electric vehicles has made its debut in Europe. With the E-STOR system, the second life batteries are recharged at low power, and the stored energy is then released at high power. UK-based company Connected Energy and Groupe Renault have installed two quick-charge stat

Projects to improve the Blue Badge parking schemes, trials of autonomous vehicles and more accessible toilets on trains are among initiatives the government is backing to improve transport for people with disabilities. The Department for Transport (DfT) has published its draft accessibility action plan, which is now out to consultation. The department said it wants to hear views and ideas on how to best improve accessibility on roads, rail, water and in the air. The consultation runs unti

The full benefits of autonomous vehicles (AVs) will not be felt until every car on the road is connected to each other, a paper by a US academic has suggested. This is because the human eye is, in many ways, still superior to sensor systems currently being used on road vehicles. Brandon Schoettle, project manager at University of Michigan’s Human Factors Group, has produced a paper called Sensor Fusion: A Comparison of Sensing Capabilities of Human Drivers and Highly Automated Vehicles.

Drivers are concerned that driverless cars will make people too dependent on technology, a survey has found. In identifying their feelings about automotive technology, the top six issues raised by motorists were negative ones such as being worried about conceding control.  Motorists are three times as likely (44%) to be scared of autonomous vehicles due to the loss of personal control than likely to see the positive opportunities.  Respondents said driverless cars would lead to peopl

Millennials living in London are enthusiastic users of the shared economy, according to a survey commissioned by car-share provider DriveNow UK. Some 73% of respondents said they use services and apps such as DriveNow, Airbnb and Uber.

The average British motorist wastes £968 and spends nearly five days stuck in traffic each year because of congestion, analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) reveals Traffic congestion has a serious impact on economic development, quality of life and public health, the Local Government Association (LGA) warns in a new report. The average British motorist wastes £968 and spends nearly five days stuck in traffic each year because of congestion, analysis by the LGA suggests

A driver has been jailed for causing the death of a friend after he crashed while trying to reach 100mph for a video to be posted on social media channel Snapchat. As Ricafort Gamboa sped along country roads near Aberystwyth in West Wales last July, friends inside the car filmed him on their mobile phones. Gamboa's friends could be heard encouraging him to drive faster on mobile phones recovered from the crashed car. As he sped up, Gamboa he began taking corners on the wrong side of the road. B

Police forces across Wales will now accept ‘dashcam’ footage recorded by the public to investigate driving offences following a pilot scheme in North Wales. Operation Snap was trialled by North Wales Police during the autumn of 2016. The scheme encouraged drivers to upload video evidence of possibly dangerous driving to a police website. Dangerous driving includes people being distracted while using handheld mobile phones, not wearing seatbelts and speeding. North Wales Police rece

A parapet at an NCP car park in Nottingham City Centre partially collapsed in the small hours of Saturday morning. No one was injured in the incident at the Nottingham City multi-storey, which occurred at around 4am on 26 August, but some cars were left dangling from the edge of the building. A section of the concrete façade fell some 50 feet into Cumberland Place below. Structural engineers have been assessing the situation and streets around the car park were sealed off by police. N

German engineering and electronics company Bosch has launched a system that helps hauliers locate, book and pay for secure truck parking around Europe. Truck drivers can use the Bosch Secure Truck Parking website to reserve parking spaces in countries such as the UK, France, Germany, and Italy.  The Bosch Secure Truck Parking system links the infrastructure of parking lots with the information and communication systems of dispatchers and truck drivers Bosch says the system offe

Leeds-based airport parking price comparison service Looking4Parking.com has made its first business acquisition in the southern hemisphere. The UK company has purchases Melbourne-based company Airport Parking Australia. The deal will give Looking4Parking.com coverage across Australia and New Zealand, as well as some additional partnerships in Japan. Airport Parking Australia offers parking at 14 airports and six sea ports across Australia and New Zealand, as well as seven airports in

Online parking reservation provider ParkCloud has expanded its relationship with international parking company Q-Park to include the Irish market. ParkCloud is now offering its pre-bookable parking services at 21 car parks in eight city centre locations across Ireland and Northern Ireland, including Dublin, Kilkenny, Cork and Belfast.  ParkCloud, which has recently been nominated for a British Travel Award for Best Airport Parking Company, already partners with Q-Park across 18 other

City of Edinburgh Council has launched the third phase of its roll-out of 20mph speed limits. The council says that calming traffic has widespread public support, with 65% of Scots in a recent poll in favour of a 20mph default limit in urban areas. A survey of more than 50,000 people earlier this year found 70% backed the roll-out of 20mph zones across Edinburgh. Signs and road markings have been put in place across the Phase 3 areas, marking which streets have changed to 20mph. As with the who

Gareth Hughes, chief executive of civil enforcement specialist Marston Holdings, won the Transformational Leader prize at the London and South EY Entrepreneur Of The Year awards, which took place at BAFTA 195 Piccadilly. The annual awards celebrate men and women who are building dynamic businesses. Marston Holdings operates a number of debt recovery companies that collect a range of road traffic, parking, council tax and other debts for around 250 local authorities. The company also col

German car-maker Mercedes-Benz will be piloting a driverless parking solution at the multi-storey car park serving its museum in Stuttgart, Germany. The Automated Valet Parking concept has been developed by Mercedes-Benz’s Daimler brand in partnership with engineering company Bosch. The Automated Valet Parking concept is that a driver will step out of their car and tap in ‘park’ on a smartphone app. The garage then handles the logistics of the operation by working with the car&

Learner drivers will be able to have lessons on motorways in a bid to improve road safety, transport secretary Chris Grayling has announced. From next year learners will be allowed on motorways with an approved driving instructor in a dual control car. Grayling said the change would provide a learner drivers with a broader range of real-life experiences and better prepare them for independent driving when they pass their test. Currently learners cannot drive on a motorway until after they

British insurers have highlighted the potential dangers of “autonomous ambiguity”, as vehicles with different levels of autonomy, or driverless technology, increasingly become a feature of UK roads. With international regulators discussing what assisted and automated driving systems can and cannot do, the Automated Driving Insurer Group (ADIG), led by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) in collaboration with Thatcham Research, has released a white paper setting out the latest p

Most drivers in the UK still prefer to pay for parking by cash, and seven out of 10 admit they would probably drive past a bay that requires payment by phone, according to a survey by the AA. The AA-Populus Driver Poll, carried out last month, found that cash is still the preferred option for those looking to pay for parking. Populus received 16,239 responses from AA members to its online poll, which was conducted between 12-19 July 2017. While drivers seem to prefer paying in cash, aroun

Car parks can play an important role in supporting local businesses, and by expanding the kinds of people using them they become both safer places and commercially viable. This is the thinking behind parking operator Indigo’s policy of investing in the ambience of the structures it operates and engaging with local businesses and communities. Indigo UK is an operator of car parks in towns and other retail destinations across the UK. “Parking is often a shopper’s first and last

The City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council has been using specialist correspondence software to provide drivers contesting parking fines with prompt and clear responses. A team of 85 civil enforcement officers patrols the city and neighbouring towns and local areas. The authority issues over 100,000 penalty charge notices (PCNs) a year for parking, environmental and bus lane contraventions. Where drivers contest a PCN their challenges and representations are handled by an 11-strong back

ZatPark, a provider of hosted cloud IT solutions for parking management, is investing in new staff to manage a rise in business and is launching a user group to improve its client services. Dave Herbert, chief executive of ZatPark, said over the past six months the company has also been upgrading its mobile and hosted software in order to deliver measurable improvements to its clients and their own customers. “We have rolled out product enhancements including: Video Suite, which was recog

Shopping centre parking incomes across the UK have remained static, but the cost of providing shoppers’ parking at retail destinations is increasing, and are likely to keep rising due to changes in business rates. These are the key findings in a survey conducted by professional and real estate services company JLL. Besides analysis costs and income, the annual JLL survey of shopping centre car parks also looks at how these destinations are engaging with owners of electric vehicles. The s

The AA Trust has launched what it claims is the first ever Drive Electric course, free of charge and specifically geared to those who want to get the best out of driving electric vehicles (EVs).  The announcement was made by Edmund King, chairman of the AA Trust at the launch of the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (EVEC) in Milton Keynes on 20 July. One third of drivers

A Private Members’ Bill calling for a single code of practice for the private parking sector is to be debated in the House of Commons. The Parking (Code of Practice) Bill, which had its first reading on 19 July, will make provision for a code of practice containing guidance about the operation and management of private parking. The Bill is sponsored by Sir Greg Knight, Conservative MP for East Yorkshire and is supported by MPs Kevin Brennan, Pete Wishart, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Daniel Zeichner

The tenth World Parking Symposium will be held in Berlin from 24-27 June 2018. The bienniel event, which is run by the Canadian Parking Foundation, alternates between Europe and North America. The theme for WPS X will be ‘

The UK’s first multi-brand electric vehicle (EV) showroom opens its doors to the public on 22 July at the Centre:mk shopping centre in Milton Keynes. Managed by Chargemaster and funded by Milton Keynes’ Go Ultra Low City scheme, the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (EVEC) has been established to increase the number of EVs sold in the area.  Milton Keynes Council has set a target of 23% of all new cars registered locally to be electric by 2021. The council hopes that the 1,200

Campaigners from the charity Guide Dogs went to Downing Street to hand in a petition signed by more than 31,000 people calling on the government to introduce a new law to end problem pavement parking The charity said that cars parked on pavements are dangerous for pedestrians, especially people with sight loss, who are particularly affected as they can be forced into oncoming traffic that they cannot see. It said pavement parking also effects parents with pushchairs, wheelchair users and other

A British computer science student studying in California is expanding an online service that generates automated parking appeals to offer free advice on a wide range of legal issues in the UK and USA. Joshua Browder made international headlines when he launched the DoNotPay website for challenging parking tickets. In its two years of operation, Browder estimates the ‘chatbot’ has beaten 375,000 tickets across the UK and in the US cites of New York and Seattle. Now DoNotP

Over 70 members of NHS staff have been told by a court that they have to pay parking charge notices (PCNs) issued at a hospital in Cardiff. The court case involved three people working at University Hospital of Wales (UHW), but the ruling on these lead cases will affect 78 in total. Last month a judge at Cardiff Civil Justice Centre ruled that parking operator Indigo Park Services UK could collect the charges from University Hospital of Wales staff. Indigo holds a contract to manage and maintai

The British Parking Association and what it stands for means a lot to me. It is an association that brings together all aspects of our industry, strives to achieve consistent, fair and high standards of service and provides a wealth of knowledge sharing, helping to bring industry providers together.  My role as president is to reach out to our members and stakeholders. Our sector and profession continue to change and evolve and I am delighted by how our association is responding by listeni

Australian investment bank Macquarie is selling UK parking operator National Car Parks (NCP) to a Japanese consortium. Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund II (MEIF2) is to sell its 100% interest in NCP to a consortium comprising Park24, a listed Japanese strategic buyer and Development Bank of Japan (DBJ), a government-owned financial institution.  The value of the deal has not been disclosed. MEIF2, which acquired NCP in 2007, said it is divesting itself of the parking company because

Over two-thirds of London boroughs provide a good online experience for residents applying for parking permits, according to a survey carried out by Socitm, the society for IT practitioners in the public sector.  Parking is one of the key services assessed by Socitm’s Better Connected performance surveys. Some 67% of London boroughs provided ‘good’ or ‘very good’ online service based on the survey, which was conducted in January. Vicky Sargent, Better Connect

Primary school children in Edinburgh have been creating 20mph-themed artwork to support of the city’s rollout of slower speeds to residential, shopping and city centre streets. As work begins to install signs and lines for the third phase of the project, primary four pupils at Flora Stevenson's Primary School have produced 20mph-themed posters featuring slogans such as "30's dirty - so don't do it; 20's plenty - so do it" and "Go Slow - 20's plenty" to drive home the message that slower s

Schools could generate revenue by renting out empty parking spaces during the summer vacation period, an online parking marketplace has suggested. Schools located near to town centres, train stations and popular local amenities are particularly well placed to meet demand from motorists, according to online parking portal YourParkingSpace.co.uk. “Many schools are located in urban areas and close to town centres, railway stations and the like, making them ideal for car owners looking for s

The Safer Parking Scheme is promoting the Park Mark using an advertising campaign based around camouflage body art. The advertising campaign focuses on the safer parking scheme criteria that are known to reduce crime and the fear of crime in car parks and aims to bring the scheme’s brand into people’s consciousness so that they know what to look for. 

Young people are giving up on the idea of learning to drive, according to research carried out by automotive consumer website HonestJohn.co.uk The number of 17-year olds taking the practical driving test has fallen by more than 100,000 since 2007-08, while the overall number of under-25s in the UK that are learning to drive is down by 20%. East Sussex experienced the largest average drop in young people taking the practical driving test, with a fall of 61%, while the County of Bristol was seco

Connected car services provider INRIX has added details of all APCOA Parking sites in Europe to its parking database. The deal sees APCOA providing INRIX with access to information from 1.4m parking spaces at over 9,000 locations in 13 countries.  The INRIX Parking database holds details of 35m parking spaces in 8,700 cities across 100 countries worldwide. It offers dynamic occupancy information on 20,000 lots in 2,000 cities across 67 countries. INRIX provides parking information and ser

Drivers across Britain spend almost two days a year searching for a space, claims a new international parking study by connected car systems company INRIX. It is perhaps that 71% of drivers in the UK think there is not enough parking, according to a new report by INRIX, a supplier of connected car services and transportation analytics. The analysis of parking in the USA, UK and Germany combines data from the INRIX parking database of 100,000 locations across 8,700 cities, with data from surveys

Brighton & Hove City Council was named as the winner of the Best Report at the PATROL Parking Annual Reports by Councils (PARC) Awards, which were presented at the Houses of Parliament last month. The Best Concise Report Award was presented to South Lakeland Borough Council, while Chichester, Devon and Durham were recognised for best practice. The PARC Awards were created by PATROL (Parking and Traffic Regulations Outside London), which represents 309 local authorities in England and Wales

Technological and sociological trends will transform the design and operation of parking services. The car park of the future will be a place where, besides parking, you re-charge your electric car and/or pick up online purchases. Within the next few years, car parks will become places where semi-autonomous cars drop-off their driver and passengers, park themselves and then pick them up again after their shopping trip or leisure experience. The fact that the car of the future will most probably

A ‘green screen’ designed to combat poor air quality has been installed at a primary school in Brixton, south London. The ivy hedge, created by Lambeth council alongside the playground St Helen’s Catholic Primary School, is designed to block harmful toxins from the heavily polluted Brixton Road.  Research shows that green screens lower both particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide exposure. Lambeth has some of the highest levels of air pollution in the UK. Poor air quali

Essex has emerged as a model of partnership working when it comes to parking management and enforcement. The boroughs and districts have entered into two formal alliances – the North Essex Parking Partnership and South Essex Parking Partnership – in order to pool their knowledge, management and buying power. The partnerships are also committed to the use of in-house frontline staff, coordinating on-street and off-street parking and working across boundaries. However, there was a peri

Excel Parking Services is seeking to improve the customer service skills of its on-site and back office staff by adopting a training programme that is widely used across the retail and hospitality sector. Excel held a ‘Principles of Customer Service’ training course under the auspices of WorldHost last month.  WorldHost was the customer service provider chosen for ‘Gamesmakers’ who interacted with competitors, spectators and visitors during the London 2012 Olympics.

Dyslexia and autistic tendencies long presented barriers to office work for Simon Hamilton, who found himself working in manual jobs for over 20 years. However, his acute observation skills have enabled the 45-year-old to undertake a career change. He is now reviewing video evidence at Imperial Civil Enforcement’s Business Processing Unit in Northampton. In this role his particular skills and attention to detail are proving to be invaluable. Hamilton grew up in Northamptonshire and after

Ensuring that new recruits and existing employees receive consistent training presents a major challenge for companies that operate on a nationwide basis. This was the situation facing Indigo Park Services UK, which has over 70 contracts for public and private sector clients from Plymouth in the South-West of England to Dundee in the North-East of Scotland. For many years, employee training at Indigo UK had been delivered using a traditional classroom-based approach. However, the company’s

The RSPCA is reminding motorists not to leave their dogs alone in cars on a warm day as this can quickly prove fatal. “While many people believe it is okay to leave a dog in a car on a hot day if the windows are left open or they’ve parked in the shade, the truth is that it’s still a very dangerous situation for the dog. A car can become as hot as an oven very quickly, when it doesn’t feel that warm. When it’s 22 degrees, in a car it can reach an unbearable 47 degr

Facilities management company Apleona has launched WelPARK Solutions, a standalone business for the retail parking sector. Apleona has been offering parking management as part of its wider facilities management work for several years, running 140 car parks at retail and business sites across the UK and Ireland. The decision to create WelPARK Solutions is a bid to forge a distinct business unit, says its director Andrew Bailey. “There was a tendency to view us as an add-on service, so we

The new apprenticeship levy is presenting a much more dynamic and responsive approach to vocational training and skills development in local authorities. Some local authorities have pounced on the opportunity to extend their internal training capabilities. Others now recognise the new opportunity to capitalise on the practical experience and training expertise of like-minded employers. Either way, the new apprenticeship levy is presenting a much more dynamic and responsive approach to vocationa

Over 10,000 people signed petition on a single day calling on the government to stop problem pavement parking. The petition, launched by charity Guide Dogs, urges the government to make pavement parking illegal, except in certain areas allowed by local councils.  The Pavement Parking Petition Day on 19 June built on previous Guide Dogs campaigns on the issue, such as the campaign being a guest petition on the website Mumsnet. Cars parked on pavements pose a serious danger to people with s

TERRAM has expanded its range of reinforcement mesh products for protecting grassed areas prone to damage from vehicular or pedestrian traffic. The company’s GrassProtecta has been used at golf courses, National Trust sites, landscape gardens and airports. The range now features three new products: GrassProtecta Lite, GrassProtecta Medium and GrassProtecta Heavy. TERRAM’s UK distribution sales manager, Martin Gilbert, said: “We have spent a significant amount of time listen

A parking guidance system has been installed at a shopping centre at Newtonabbey in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  The new parking signage is part of a redevelopment of the Abbey Centre, which attracts 115,000 visitors every week. The centre has 1,265 free car parking spaces. The centre management decided to introduce dynamic parking guidance as a way to help customers more easily locate available bays. Seven variable message signs (VMS) and seven car parking count sensors were installed by

Nortech’s vehicle detectors can now be set up using a smartphone app. The company’s latest range of vehicle detectors feature a compact diagnostic unit that links to an app to enable setup and loop fault analysis. This means installation engineers no longer need to get on their hands and knees to see a tiny display while reaching for switches and buttons on the detector. The 7-series detectors also have features designed to reduce the need for manual intervention, including automa

Nortech Control Systems has launched a range of variable message signs (VMS). The high intensity, RGB LED signs are designed to be compatible with Nortech’s range of vehicle counting and shared occupancy control systems. Clients can choose how count values and status messages are displayed and in which colours. The luminance of the signs can either be controlled automatically or fixed at a level appropriate to the local lighting conditions. The signs will be available with either 10cm

The International Parking Community (IPC) has appointed Charles Clowes as its new chief operating officer. Clowes joins the accredited trade association from National Car Parks (NCP), where he was head of commercial.  The creation of the chief operating officer role will see Will Hurley becoming chief executive of the IPC. Hurley said: “This is an influential and significant role and our search for the right person has taken quite some time. However, our patience has been worthwhile.

The British Parking Association (BPA) has achieved the Investors in People Gold Standard. The BPA has held the IiP Silver Standard since 2013, but decided to aim for the next level when renewal came around. In order to achieve the Gold Standard, the BPA looked at how its leadership worked, how it managed strategy development and recruitment. “Silver is great, but why wouldn’t you want to do better? Plus, the things you have to put in place in order to achieve Gold improve employee

A common problem for many disabled motorists is not being able to park at their desired destination, especially at their local supermarket. A frequent complaint is that the disabled bays are all occupied with cars not displaying a Blue Badge. Disabled Motoring UK is currently undertaking the 2017 edition of its Baywatch survey, which assesses levels of abuse of disabled parking spaces at supermarkets. The survey and further information about Baywatch can be found by clicking here The Baywat

The new version Buchanan Computing’s SignPlot traffic sign software includes new functions to make bus lane sign design easier and addresses sign illumination. SignPlot has covered the complete range of TSRGD 2016 signs since before the regulations came into effect. The enhancements in SignPlot 3.4 focus on making bus lane and other signs quicker to design. Bus lane signs can now be created by ticking the relevant options and entering enforcement hours in note form. This works for offsid

Some 20 years from now the way in which we travel may have been transformed by the widespread introduction of autonomous and connected electric-powered vehicles. Much of the research and discussion being undertaken at the moment is, necessarily, focussed on understanding the way in which the next generation of vehicles function. However, it is also important to understand the impact autonomous, connected and electric vehicles will have on the infrastructure of towns and cities.  For exampl

The accuracy of ANPR enforcement systems used in supermarket car parks was challenged by Radio 4’s You and Yours in June. The programme took up the case of Kevin Ayres, who received an £85 parking charge notice (PCN) from ParkingEye after visiting a Lidl in Aberyswyth. The PCN was issued after he appeared to have parked at the store overnight, in breach of its terms and conditions. Ayres said he drove to the store in the evening to buy oven chips. No oven chips were available so he

Q-Park’s board has recommended the Dutch parking operator’s shareholders accept a €2.95bn offer from US private equity investor KKR. The offer came as the result of a structured sale process that was initiated last year by Q-Park’s existing shareholders. Q-Park’s shareholders consist mainly of institutional investors, including pension funds and insurance companies. Q-Park’s shareholder committee of Q-Park has entered into an

Nedap won the Intertraffic Parking Solutions Award 2017 for its smart parking solution in the Turkish city of Izmir. Nedap’s SENSIT smart parking sensors monitor the vehicle occupancy of 2,000 individual parking spaces in the streets of Izmir. The system has resulted in improved parking guidance and efficient monitoring of all paid, time restricted and disabled parking zones. Based on real-time information, motorists are guided to available spaces easily. In addition al

The British Parking Association (BPA) has published a ‘Manifesto for Parking’ to ensure parking has a central place in government policy-making after the General Election. The BPA’s chief executive Andrew Pester said: “As the recognised authority in the parking sector, the BPA is driving change and we want commitment from the next government to act to ensure a smarter and more sustainable future for everyone.” The BPA said it wants to see more consistency in the wa

The Addenbrooke’s Hospital car park in Cambridge has become the 50th NCP site to be awarded the People’s Parking accreditation.  The Addenbrooke’s Hospital car park received the accreditation because it provides 64 spaces for disabled people and larger bays for parents with young children. It also offers concessionary parking for visitors, outpatients and hospital staff. “NCP is committed to continuously improving our customers’ experience of our sites,&rdquo

The Disabled Parking Accreditation (DPA) has been awarded a Certification Mark by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO), the official UK government body that is responsible for patents, designs and trademarks. The DPA scheme, which was launched by Disabled Motoring UK (DMUK) in 2014, recognises off-street parking facilities that are accessible to disabled motorists.  A certification mark is a specific type of trademark that provides a guarantee that the goods or services bearing the mark

ParkBee, a company that enables owners of private car parks to sell space to the general public, has launched in the UK. ParkBee, which was launched in the Netherlands last year, is now offering access to private parking areas in London. The company says it has locations in east, north and south London. Drivers can pay for their parking at the sites using mobile phone services supplied by Parkmobile Group. Where access to the car park is controlled by a barrier, the Parkmobile app can activate

Q-Park UK has signed a 35-year lease on the Piccadilly Place car park in Manchester. The car park is owned by Property Alliance Group and Ares Management.  The car park is located next to Manchester’s main train station, Piccadilly. The car park sits underneath Piccadilly Place piazza, a mixed-use scheme comprising three office buildings, an apartment block, restaurants, cafés, bars and a gym.  Q-Park has signed a deal for 302 public spaces and will also manage spaces th

British Parking Award winner Jade Neville has joined Legion Parking as client account manager. Legion Parking is part of facilities management specialist OCS Group. Neville previously worked for APCOA Parking, where she started as a civil enforcement officer supervisor in 2007 before being promoted to the role of operations manager in 2014. She received the Front Line trophy at the British Parking Awards 2014 in recognition of her work as a ‘hate crime ambassador’, a role that saw

Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions has recruited Leadley Wilson as its training and systems consultant for northern England and Scotland.  Wilson joins the company from Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council, where he worked on the major digital transformation programmes, helping to upskill staff across a range of software, systems and communication technologies.  He is an information and communications technology (ICT) and systems trainer, professionally qualified in Human Resourc

Parking is an emotive and potentially sensitive aspect of hospital life, but an NHS trust in the West Midlands is working to take the stress out of finding a space. Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust faced a parking conundrum that is all too familiar for hospital management teams all over the country: not enough car parking spaces to meet the demand from staff and visitors.  The trust is responsible for delivering healthcare services for well over 500,000 local people. It emp

A website that allows homeowners to rent out electric vehicle (EV) charging points has been launched in the UK. Chargie offers dedicated bookable peer-to-peer EV charging service.  The Chargie website enables EV drivers to book the domestic, wall-mounted chargepoints of other electric vehicle owners signed-up to the service.  The company opened its UK charge point booking service in May with more than 60 chargepoints across the country. The company says it is offering a relatively ev

The Port of Antwerp, the biggest port of Belgium, is dominated by the Havenhuis, a building in the shape of a ship that is both the workplace for 500 employees as the central meeting point for the Antwerp port community. The Havenhuis has a large underground parking facility, which is used by both employees and visitors.  The port authorities wanted to inform drivers about the number of available parking spaces in real-time and then guide drivers have to be guided to the spaces that are a

Q-Park has upgraded pay-on-foot systems at five car parks it operates in Sheffield city centre. The operator has opted to use the the ParkAdvance system produced by WPS. The new systems replace existing WPS BC200 systems at the Charles Street, Castlegate, Sheffield Station, Riverside and Rockingham car parks. ParkAdvance features a new IP-based operating system that enables the parking system to connect with different technologies being deployed in car parks. Q-Park has also selected WPS to s

Property and construction group McLaren has launched a new business focussed on building and refurbishing car parks. The new McLaren Parking business will specialise in the upgrade, maintenance and construction of car parks. The group has been working in this market in the UK and United Arab Emirates over the past 15 years. Its projects include two car parks for NCP in Bolton. Deane Road was built in 2009 while its sister site, Topp Way, was named Best New Car Park at the British Parking Awards

Three Cambridge City Council car parks are undergoing improvements throughout the summer as part of a £1.2m investment programme.  The car parks being upgraded are The Grand Arcade, Queen Anne Terrace and Grafton East. The Grand Arcade car park, which has not had any major refurbishment works since it opened in 2007, will have a number of improvements. These include the laying of completely new protective deck coatings throughout the upper car park to keep rainwater out and to prote

Car owners are being offered the opportunity to give their vehicles the VIP treatment by storing them in what is a spa for cars. Tim Earnshaw wanted somewhere safe to store to his treasured Morgan sports car when he was globetrotting for Ferrari Formula One.  Unable to find a car storage centre that would pamper his car, Earnshaw established Windrush in 2004. Windrush now has storage centres in central London and the Cotswolds countryside.  Cars left with Windrush not only receive a

Programming a sat-nav while driving is a potentially deadly distraction, a practical test conducted by Road safety charity IAM RoadSmart has revealed. British Formula 3 hopeful Jamie Chadwick and Joe Finnerty, consumer editor of car magazine Auto Express, were put to the test alongside in a professional racing simulator at Base Performance Simulators in Banbury. They were both assessed to see how they coped with the most common distracting tasks on UK roads, while completing timed laps and brak

A growing number of cars have sensors designed to detect hazard ahead of them in the road to help drivers avoid collisions. Volkswagen has now developed a system that detects driving hazards coming behind a car. The ‘Pre-Crash occupant protection system’ being offered as an option to buyers of the VW Arteon has sensors that can detect a potential ‘rear-ending’ incident in addition to risks of collisions detected by the Front Assist and Side Assist systems. Pre-Crash ut

A well maintained and managed car park is essential to ensure that all users, both vehicles and pedestrians stay safe. A car park is often the first impression a customer will have of your business, so also needs to look good. Regular maintenance is necessary to keep a car park looking good and safe for all users, and the summer months are an ideal time to carry out any routine work. How much depends on the volume of traffic using the car park. Firstly, when you try to assign an order to all t

A director of a leading property company has expressed concerns about the use of ANPR enforcement in retail car parks. Allan Lockhart, property director at New River Retail, told Radio 4’s You and Yours consumer affairs programme that his company tends to “shy away” from using an enforcement-based approach to managing parking at its 45 shopping centres. Lockhart said that limited stay regimes enforced by cameras are not customer friendly. “From our perspective, running

My fascination with concrete, industrial landscapes, and what I later came to know as ‘Brutalism’, started at an early age. It’s hardly surprising as I grew up in the North East of England in the late Seventies. At the time, British Steel and the ICI chemical plant commanded the north and eastern flanks of Middlesbrough, the town in which I was born and raised. These chemical and steel plants not only dominated the horizon beyond the town centre, they also supplied an industria

Charging-based Clean Air Zones should only be implemented if absolutely necessary to bring nitrogen dioxide concentrations down to legal levels, the government has told English local authorities. The plan has been published following a long legal battle with environmental groups. The plan, titled Improving air qua

Parking and property professionals have long lived by the mantra ‘location, location, location’. But while location remains important, the era of data analytics and connected cars means information and communication will soon be the most important factors for developers, retailers and parking operators. Parking and places in the era of connected cars will be central themes at Parking & Property 2017. The line-up of speakers includes experts in retail trends, property development

JustPark, a company that has so far specialised in developing an online parking marketplace, has announced is intention to enter the on-street parking arena. This move will see it go into competition against established phone parking service providers.  London-based JustPark is to expand its off-street parking solution and enter the cashless on-street market, the company’s founder and CEO Anthony Eskinazi has revealed to Parking Review. JustPark has spent the last decade building up

Pupils and teachers across Edinburgh have joined a campaign to discourage inconsiderate parking at school gates.  The ParkSmart initiative, which was launched on 28 April, aims to cut congestion at the beginning and end of the school day while promoting active travel amongst children and their families. The scheme aims to awareness of the hazards caused by drivers parking on yellow zig zag lines, double parking or mounting the pavement. Instead, parents are being encouraged to consider al

Parking management software provider ZatPark has announced its move into the on-street enforcement sector. Until now the company specialised in providing enforcement, permit and payment technology to the off-street sector, but has now developed an app-based approach for civil parking enforcement (CPE). ZatPark has brought in Michael Cosentino, whose background is in providing enforcement systems to the local authority, to lead its move into the CPE sector (see panel). “The back office ap

Parking operator CitiPark has introduced a new parking tariff based on the emissions of the vehicles parking at its Clipstone Street site within London’s Congestion Charge zone. The tariff is designed to attract drivers of hybrid, electric and low-emission vehicles. CitiPark will assess the vehicle emissions of a vehicle upon entry to the car park and charge accordingly. The vehicle emission checks will be performed using advanced software developed by APT Skidata. Vehicles emitting less

Brake, the road safety charity, has launched a new project for primary schools to help children spread road safety messages in their community. Brake’s road safety poster competition aims to inspire and engage children, aged 4-11, about the need for drivers to slow down so kids can walk and cycle to school safely. The competition, supported by the National Fire Chiefs’ Council (NFCC), National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and sponsor Co-op Insurance, will see winning designs

NCP has introduced a new uniform for its frontline staff, who have been an integral part of the design process.  The uniform has been designed to be practical for those wearing them, while enabling them to maintain their professional image.  Lightweight, weatherproof materials have been chosen to be comfortable while offering protection from the elements and special care has gone into ensuring the material is also durable and long-lasting.  Safety has also been a key design elem

NHS trusts in England are making the process of paying for parking by patients and visitors more difficult than it should be, claims the RAC. Data collected by the motoring organisation suggests that four-in-10 hospital trusts in England that charge for parking offer no option to pay by credit or debit card at any of their sites, while a third do not allow drivers to pay-on-exit. The data was collected via a Freedom of Information (FOI) request sent by the RAC to the 206 hospital trusts in Eng

There has been dramatic growth in the number of UK residents applying for kerbs to be lowered in order to allow vehicles to access their property.  The research by Direct Line Insurance Group shows that nearly 30,000 dropped kerb applications were approved in 2015. The insurance company said that this has generated almost £3m for councils from application fees in 2015, up almost 68% compared with 2013. In total some 434 councils across the UK were contacted by Direct Line as part of

Drivers’ chances of successfully challenging penalty charge notices (PCNs) varies significantly across the country, suggests research conducted by the Press Association (PA). While English local authorities approve only one in 10 appeals against on-street PCNs, others accept nearly every challenge, reports the PA, which obtained data from 98 English local authorities through Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. The figures cover initial challenges to on-street parking fines received fro

Learner drivers will have to be able to follow directions from a satellite navigation device and drive into a parking space in order to pass their test under changes to the driving exam announced by ministers. From 4 December 2017 learner drivers will also be expected to answer vehicle safety questions while on the move and complete 20 minutes of independent driving rather than 10. Transport minister Andrew Jones said: “Ensuring the driving test is relevant in the 21st century, for examp

From automated electric cars to supersonic trains and fare paying rocket ships, Elon Musk has bold visions when it comes to how we will travel. But The Wall Street Journal recently explored how the American technologist is having to get to grips with a far more mundane issue: how to accommodate all the growing number of employees who want to use the staff car parks at his offices and factories in California. “Parking is, like, one of my biggest nightmares. Like, where do we park everyone?

Local authorities in Scotland made a £40.3m surplus from their parking activities in 2015-16, according to analysis conducted for the RAC Foundation. This is 12% higher than in the 2014-15 financial year when £36.1m was reported. Data analysed for the RAC Foundation shows that Scotland’s 32 councils had a combined income from their parking activities – charges and penalty income from on-street and off-street parking – of £79.3m. However, the combined cost

The Scottish Government has launched a consultation on how to deliver a more consistent approach to managing parking in Scotland. Transport Scotland’s Improving Parking in Scotland consultation seeks views on how to address the issue of pavement parking, as well as views on how best to manage disabled parking provision, and determining what parking incentives local authorities can provide for the uptake of ultra-low emission vehicles.  In May 2015, Sandra White MSP, introduced the Fo

The Bon Accord & St Nicholas Shopping Centre dominates retailing in Aberdeen’s city centre, attracting an annual footfall of 13 million people a year. The pair of centres are anchored by John Lewis and Marks & Spencer and provide 460,000 sq. ft. of retail accommodation for over 75 shop units that are let to retailers including Boots, New Look, Next, River Island, Top Shop/Top Man and Hobbs.? The centres have 1,400 car parking spaces, including the Loch Street and Harriet Street mu

The waterproof coatings used on a Bedfordshire County Council multi-storey car park in the centre of Leighton Buzzard are still working almost 30 years after their application. The Stirling Lloyd Decseal waterproofing and wearing course system was installed at the West Street car park in 1989, with some replacement markings in 2003.  When inspected in October 2015, Bedfordshire’s term contractors Amey returned to carry out further maintenance. They found the system was still well bo

British Water, the UK water industry’s representative body, has published a code of practice for assessing surface water treatment technologies, including those for run-off from car parks and roads. The introduction of sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) as a planning requirement across the UK on new developments (and redevelopments) makes it necessary to provide designers of SuDS with reliable information.  The voluntary code of practice allows professionals delivering SuDS to appl

Car-maker Daimler and technology company Bosch are to work together on developing a fully automated driverless system by the start of the next decade. The two German companies believe driverless vehicles will be able to act as shared urban resources and be used by both non-car owners and non-drivers such as young and old people. Bosch and Daimler aim to develop software and algorithms for an autonomous driving system that will achieve Level 4 (high automation) and Level 5 (full automation) drive

The size, use and distribution of parking facilities may need to change considerably as connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) become more commonplace, according to a new report by the RAC Foundation. The report has been produced by Charles Johnson, group technical director of consultant CAS (Competence Assurance Solutions). He uses the Society of Automotive Engineers’ definition of the five levels of automation: Level 1 (driver assistance); 2 (partial automation); 3 (conditional automat

Cobalt Telephone Technologies rewarded its 10 millionth registered RingGo user with a bottle of champagne. Georgina Egan, a National Children’s Charity worker from Stevenage, used the UK’s biggest cashless parking service for the first time in London on 3 April. She parked her Abarth 595 in East Heath car park, Hampstead Heath, for six hours while attending a training course. The RingGo cashless parking solution was launched in 2003 and its first live transaction took place in 2004

A third of motorists try to avoid completing driving manoeuvres for fear of getting them wrong, according to new research. Parallel parking tops the list of most commonly avoided manoeuvres, with 28% of drivers admitting to giving it a miss whenever possible.  The study, commissioned by servicing and repair company Kwik Fit, found that motorists’ fear of putting their car through various manoeuvres peaks during their driving test but often never entirely leaves them even after many y

Grand Prix events could be hosted on English roads under new laws that came into force on 10 April that allow motorsport promoters to apply for permission from local authorities to close public roads to stage races. The move could see small races hosted by local communities, bigger European rallies or even a future Monaco-style Grand Prix in an English city. The Motor Sports Association and the Auto-Cycle Union, the respective governing bodies for four-wheel and two-wheel motor sport in the UK

Back in 2015, together with the Guide Dogs, we worked with Simon Hoare MP to sponsor a Private Member's Bill in Parliament which would prevent people from parking on pavements except in places exempted by the council. At the time, the government agreed that this was a really important issue and asked us to withdraw the Bill so that they could conduct their own research into the best way forward. Following that, we were part of a roundtable chaired by Andrew Jones.  Following that meeting

A former winner of The Young Parking Professional of the Year Award has been appointed as client account manager at NSL.  Beth Rutherford has joined the outsourcing company following earlier roles as a parking officer and parking quality assurance officer at the London Borough of Ealing.  Rutherford will be mainly based at NSL’s offices in Camden where she will take responsibility for managing the London council’s contract as well as assisting with NSL’s Camden cont

Parking prangs can set couples on a collision course, it seems. New research has uncovered widely varying levels of honesty from drivers around the country when it comes to owning up to their loved one about accidental damage they have caused to their partner’s car. Drivers in London and the West Midlands were most open with their partners, with nine out of ten admitting they had caused the damage. Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, only one in three of those surveyed in the North

Uber Technologies has restarted its self-driving car trials just days after one of its autonomous vehicles was involved in a crash in Arizona, USA. The company has resumed autonomous vehicle (AV) testing in Tempe, Arizona, as well as in San Francisco, California, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On Friday 24 March, Uber suspended its AV pilot programme in the three cities after the crash in Tempe. According to Tempe’s police department a human-driven vehicle “failed to yield” to

Laws allowing local authorities to ban pavement parking in London should be rolled out across the country to crack down on inconsiderate motorists endangering lives, councils say. The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents more than 370 councils in England and Wales, says all councils need extra flexibility to introduce bans if needed.  The association said pavement parking bans could free up congested pavements and make it safer for pedestrians.  The LGA says pavement

Transport minister Andrew Jones publicly defended he relationship between the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the private parking sector during a Westminster Hall debate in the Houses of Parliament. MPs voiced their concerns about the sale the appropriateness of a government agency selling vehicle keeper data to private companies on 21 March. To read the full debate click here Responding to the discussion, Jones

Google has upgraded its a feature that enables people to remember where they have parked on its map interface. Users can now tap a new parking button to make notes, take pictures, and mark the location of their car by opening up Google Maps and tapping on the blue location dot. The user will then be presented with a new menu that offers to “save your parking” data. This then stores the information needed to relocate the vehicle. The interface saves the current location and places

Volvo Cars Corporation has selected TomTom’s digital mapping system for the first phase of the

New research indicates that the cost of motoring has risen by more than 10% in the last year.   The study by automotive data experts HPI examines a range of factors from depreciation to fuel costs and repairs to calculate a total cost of ownership on some popular models. Philip Nothard, consumer and retail specialist at hpi said: “The motorist is facing rising taxation and fuel costs due to a weak pound. There are still some great deals to be had on new and used vehi

NSL has launched an academy for apprenticeship training. The NSL Academy aims to help public sector organisations and private companies capitalise on the government’s new apprenticeship levy, which will come into effect in April. The NSL Academy will focus on leadership and management development programmes. Jason Stevens, an organisation development consultant, has joined NSL as programme director for the new operation. “When the new levy is introduced, the onus w

NCP has launched a new commercial and client website, separate to the existing consumer website, to provide information about the products and services it offers business partners. The need for the www.ncpsolutions.co.uk website arose because the company is developing relationships with third party partners and clients across a range of products and services. The website also highlights the markets and sectors in which NCP works, including rail, airport, local authorities, retail and healthcar

Nine out of 10 drivers believe the UK driving test is no longer fit for purpose and should be replaced by a graduated driver licensing system, according to a survey by road safety and breakdown assistance organisation GEM Motoring Assist. According to GEM road safety officer Neil Worth, a graduated driver licensing (GDL) approach would add an intermediate element between learner and full licence holder, allowing new drivers to build up their skills and experience over a period of time, using cl

Cars with growing levels of autonomy could make motorists lazy and over reliant on gadgets, with far reaching implications for the potential reduction of people killed and seriously injured on the roads. This is the warning made by independent road safety charity IAM Roadsmart, which strongly supports this conclusion from yesterday’s (15 March) House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report Connected and Autonomous Vehicles: The future? The report sets out recommendations for the

Buyers of new or nearly new cars should check who has access to the data their car generates and how that data will be used to their benefit, before they sign on the dotted line.  This is a warning made by Smartdriverclub, a connected car service, which states that most motorists are unaware of the data their car is generating and how this is being used by manufacturers. Penny Searles, chief executive of Smartdriverclub said: “Data from connected cars is being gathered by motor man

Creating a car park in a factory and assembling it on site is a process that has been around for many years, but projects led by HUBER offer proof that prefabrication does not mean creating identikit buildings. HUBER is a German construction company specialising in car park design and build based on the use of a steel-frame building system. The company believes key benefits of using steel frames is that they shorten delivery times and ensure consistent quality. Prefabrication ensures better qua

Parking in the City will be the theme of the 18th European Parking Congress. The congress is the biennial gathering of the European Parking Association (EPA),  which will take place in Rotterdam, Netherlands from 20-22 September 2017.  The EPA Congress brings together participants from more than 30 countries worldwide to discuss future developments and best practices of the European parking industry.  The congress also hosts the presentation of the winners of the European Parki

Some would have us believe that technology has the answer to everything. True, new technologies have opened our eyes to all kinds of new opportunities, new possibilities and new aspirations.  One area that has developed rapidly is the ability of new systems to produce copious amounts of data, often output in real time. But, it’s not outputs that ever make the difference. It’s the way those outputs are applied and exploited to deliver what really matters – the right outcom

Barbour Logic will be marking a decade of working in the parking sector at Parkex 2017. It is 10 years since the company introduced its correspondence technology to help local authorities reduce risk, ensure consistency and improve efficiencies in answering queries from motorists who have received a penalty charge notice (PCN).  At this year’s Parkex, Barbour Logic will be showcasing the latest developments with its Response Master system.  “Response Master has created ov

Bournemouth Borough Council is taking the first steps to deter inconsiderate parking outside schools by deploying CCTV cameras. Six cameras will be deployed as part of a year-long pilot scheme at an initial three school locations where illegal parking on the yellow ‘keep clears’ has been identified as putting children’s lives in danger.  Elaine Smith, Bournemouth’s deputy parking services manager said: “The zigzag lines provided outside our schools are there t

Parkex, the British Parking Association’s annual conference, celebrates its silver jubilee this year. The three-day parking event runs parallel to Traffex at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC). Over 70 companies will be showcasing the latest products and services available to the parking sector in Hall 5 at the NEC between 4-6 April. Companies on show will include payment equipment manufacturers, digital parking solution developers, enforcement IT specialists and traffic

The diverse nature of Westminster and its multiple users creates high demand for the limited parking space available. The associated problems of congestion and poor air quality are often compounded by the time taken for motorists to find parking as they drive around the city searching for availability. Developing solutions to this parking conundrum was the focus of the Smart Cities Connected Parking Hackathon, which was organised by Impact Hub in partnership with Westminster City Council, the D

Home to the West End, Oxford Street and a host of landmarks, Westminster City Council attracts a lot of traffic. It has just 10,000 public street parking spaces, which means it has long been on the leading edge when it comes to parking, pioneering concepts such as cashless parking, using bay sensors to monitor street parking activity and adopting a marshalling approach to kerbside management. Besides managing congestion and making efficient use of limited public parking, the city council is look

There is a common perception that all a town or city centre needs to do to thrive is to provide ample, free parking. But encouraging people to visit a particular high street or shopping centre is a more complex equation. I recently held a business focus group and workshop to try and identify some of the major challenges facing the town centre. I’m sure many places would be able to identify with the issues that came up. Firstly, I asked: “What is the biggest challenge facing the town

Car parks across Barcelona are having their lighting systems upgraded. Saba, a public-private operator running the car parks on behalf of Barcelona City Council, is adopting LED lighting at seven sites. The LED lighting systems are being installed by Circontrol, a Spanish manufacturer of parking management systems. To date, the Circontrol system has been installed at the following sites: Cambó-Mercat Sta. Caterina (590 spaces), Diputació (548), Gal·la Placídia (307),

SWARCO Traffic has appointed Tony Logan as sales manager to support the roll-out of its Smart City Messenger mobile variable message signs (VMS). Originally a fire fighter from New Zealand, Logan came to the UK in 1998 to play professional rugby, and took up a position in telecommunications before entering the highways industry. He developed a particular expertise in the VMS market, and has recently led the development and delivery of a range of traffic design, management and operational mainte

APCOA has appointed Ken Stone as the its new regional manager south. Stone will be responsible for all of APCOA’s southern contracts, including London, as well building client relationships, driving innovation and securing new business. Stone has worked in parking enforcement management roles in both the public and private sectors. He has served with councils in Newham, Camden, Horsham, Lambeth, Barnet and Barking & Dagenham.  Stone said: “After six years of consultancy w

Parking & Property 2017 8 June: 15 Hatfields, London Parking & Property is the only annual event dedicated to off-street parking. Over the past 7 years the conference has provided a forum for debate and sharing best practice among public and private sector car park owners and operators, developers, planners and companies supplying design and equipment services. The conference content is developed by Nigel Williams, managing director of Parking Matters, and Mark Moran, editor of

Parking projects that seek to make the lives of children safer and easier where among the winners at the British Parking Awards 2017, which took place on Friday 10 March. Kent County Council won the Front Line Award for its Responsible Parking Squad initiative. The council has devised a toolkit of materials and techniques that can be used by pupils at secondary schools to tackle the problem of dangerous parking and driving, especially during the school run. The London Borough of Wandsworth rec

The winners of the British Parking Awards 2017 will be revealed at an awards ceremony in London on 10 March. The British Parking Awards were launched by Parking Review magazine in 2002 to recognise achievement and best practice in the design and management of parking. With winners selected by a jury of their peers, the British Parking Parking Awards logo and trophy have become a respected and coveted mark of excellence among parking professionals. Below we provide a guide to the finalists. Par

The London Borough of Havering has introduced fixed penalty notices (FPNs) to crack down on dangerous driving and parking during the school run. This is being claimed to b the first use of Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) to make anti-social driving a criminal offence in areas around schools. The east London council is piloting the use of PSPOs following attempts to discourage antisocial parking around schools using education campaigns and decriminalisd penalty charge notices. Cllr Osman

Public surveillance systems can safeguard the wellbeing of local communities, says contractor NSL, which works for the London Borough of Hackney’s Civil Protection Service. In just a single month, NSL’s public space surveillance team identified and prosecuted six persistent fly-tippers and located a vulnerable missing 14-year-old girl, a prolific drug dealer and a distressed and vulnerable man in response to specific appeals from the local police. In total, the team dealt with near

Derby City Council leader Ranjit Banwait has been caught on camera parking his car on double and single yellow lines outside a school. Residents took photographs of Banwait’s car on various streets surrounding the school. The council leader said in a statement: “The safety of my children is paramount. But as for many parents, finding the right place to park on the school run can be difficult. In such circumstances we all have to make choices and I haven’t always made the right

A guide designed to help local authorities understand the opportunities and challenges presented by rapidly accelerating advances in transport technology has been published by the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET) and ITS (UK). The second edition of the Local Authority Guide to Emerging Transport Technology is targeted at local government officers, elected members and their consultants and explains how technology can aid delivery of a range of policy objectives, from reducing em

Parking revenues at Heathrow rose last year, generating around £114m for the UK’s biggest airport. However, Heathrow has made a commitment to maintain car traffic at current levels even as it plans for a dramatic expansion. The airport has 23,000 public parking spaces that are used by business travellers, holidaymakers and people with business at the airport. Parking is treated a retail activity in the airport’s accounts, which showed its range of car park pro

SEAT’s chief digital officer Fabian Simmer discussed the Spanish car-makers’ the trends in future mobility at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Complete connectivity: Nowadays we are permanently connected to our mobile phone. The trend is to develop new technologies so that users do not lose this connection when they are driving. In the future, the vehicle itself will be connected, allowing us to improve the customer experience and offer new functions and service

A historic city centre multi-storey car park in Newcastle-upon-Tyne has been reopened by Britannia Parking. The 360-space Dex Garage on New Bridge Street West was built in 1931. The 5-storey steel frame and reinforced concrete structure retains many of its original Art Deco features remaining intact. It was closed by its previous operator on Christmas Eve, but reopened under the management of Britannia on 20 January. Britannia says it is offering the cheapest day rates for parking in the city

APCOA Parking has entered into a partnership with POD Point, a manufacturer of electric vehicle (EV) charging points. The partnership will see EV charging units rolled out in town centres and at train stations, airports, shopping centres and hotels around the country. The first batch of 15 POD Point units have been installed for APCOA at London Heathrow Airport and the Broadway Plaza retail car park in Birmingham. The units are available to all EV drivers that are looking to park their car at

Online parking marketplace YourParkingSpace, which enables property owners and businesses to hire out their parking, is reporting a 200% year-on-year increase in rentals. The London-based company says that homeowners and businesses across the UK received over £6m from renting out unused parking spaces through the website in 2016, up from £2m in 2015.

Not indicating clearly has been named as the most inconsiderate driving behaviour on UK roads, according to an RAC Insurance poll of more than 2,100 motorists. Nearly six in 10 (58%) of drivers surveyed said not signalling clearly, or failing to indicate at all, was their top inconsiderate action at the wheel. Next came hoggi

Councils must do more to make parking fines “fairer”, states a new report from The Local Government Ombudsman (LGO). The report - Fairer Fines, Ensuring good practice in the management of Parking and Traffic Penalties - highlights some of the common complaints it receives about parking and moving traffic penalties. The Ombudsman says people are sometimes being treated unfairly and may be paying fines unnecessarily. Common problems include not telling people of their appeal rights (i

Up to 42 towns across Northern Ireland could lose their regular traffic attendant patrols because of the low level of penalty charge notices (PCNs) issued per month. Under new Department for Infrastructure (DFI) proposals, areas with fewer than 10 PCNs issued a month or vehicle drive aways (VDAs) will be removed from the schedule for routine patrols. A review of transport NI’s southern division has already led to seven towns being removed from the patrol schedule. These include Dromore,

The British Parking Association is to cease funding the panel that scrutinises the operation of Parking Appeals on Private Land (POPLA), the appeals service for members of its Approved Operator Service.  The Independent Scrutiny Board for Parking Appeals on Private Land (ISPA) said the BPA would cease providing it with funding from 1 April. This means that it will no longer be able to investigate complaints brought by the public about decisions made by POPLA or review the appeals services

The London Boroughs of Bromley and Bexley have jointly awarded APCOA a new 10-year parking contract. The new arrangements, which will start in April 2017, will help to further harmonise the procedures and processes of both authorities and produce efficiency savings.  Bromley and Bexley became a shared service in 2013. To date, these authorities have utilised the services of separate contractors to undertake parking enforcement and other related duties while existing contracts ran their ter

All lorry drivers who use satellite navigation systems should be compelled to use commercial models, says the Government Association (LGA). The association also wants central government to enable English councils to take enforcement action where necessary. Villages and rural communities across the country have been affected by a recent spate of lorry smashes, says the association. For example, a historic bridge in Marlow, Bucks, had to be closed for months after a driver reportedly drove a

The car parks serving Resorts World Birmingham has obtained a Park Mark under the Safer Parking Scheme. Located at the National Exhibition Centre campus, Resorts World Birmingham is billed as being Europe’s first large scale leisure and entertainment resort destination. It brings outlet shopping, eighteen bars and restaurants, hotel and spa, casino, conferencing and cinema under one roof. The car park, has two internal car parks with 570 spaces over three floors servicing all aspects

Council car parks in the Nottinghamshire towns of Worksop and Retford have attained the Park Mark standard under the Safer Parking Scheme. Eighteen out of 20 Bassetlaw District Council’s car parks have been recognised for their crime prevention measures and facilities, such as CCTV, lighting and surface reporting. The Park Mark is awarded by the police and British Parking Association (BPA) to parking facilities that have achieved the standards of the Safer Parking Scheme risk assessment.

A growing population and increasing number of cars on the Isle of Wight will need to be tackled with more consistent parking enforcement and pricing measures, new payment systems and measures to better balance the supply and demand of spaces. Isle of Wight Council’s executive has agreed a parking strategy developed by consultant White Young Green, whose recommendations are based on public consultation, spoke to town and parish councils, business associations and transport operators. The c

The London Borough of Redbridge has been through a period of self-scrutiny, renewal and reinvention over the past 12 months. Since the arrival of new chief executive Andy Donald a year ago there have been big changes, with a new structure comprising four directorates: People, Place, Resources and Strategy. Parking, traffic management and transport now sit in Place, which is made up of three sections – Regeneration & Property, Housing and Civic Pride.  Civic Pride also covers high

An office car park in the Winnersh Triangle has been upgraded 17 years after it opened by the same contractor using the same materials. The car park at 200 Berkshire Place serves offices occupied by tenants including Sage and Amdocs.  When erected in 2000, contractor Cemplas protected the top deck of the car park using the Tretodek, Tremco’s polyurethane (PU) waterproofing system.  After almost two decades’ service the system was starting to show its age and the landlord

Parkopedia’s parking information services guide drivers to the location of car parks in cities around the world. The firm provides parking information for a wide range of car-makers and motoring organisations well as within Apple's own iOS maps app. Now the UK-based Parkopedia is seeking to become the data source that autonomous vehicles use when trying understand where to park when there is no GPS coverage, such as in an underground or multi-storey car park, and then to help it navigate

Smart parking technology is to be rolled out across Cardiff city centre. A combination of bay sensors and ANPR will monitor parking occupancy levels on-street and in car parks. This information will be used to give drivers in the Welsh capital real-time parking updates via both variable message signs and a smartphone app. Cardiff City Council has commissioned Smart Parking to deploy 3,000 infra-red bay sensors in on-street and off-street locations. ANPR will also be used in city centre car park

Google appears to be preparing to add parking guidance information to its Google Maps service.  As well as offering users potential routes by different modes, a forthcoming update to the app will offer advice about parking availability at a given destination. The new feature, found in the Google Maps v9.44 beta, will tell users what parking availability is likely to be on their arrival. The feature will not offer drivers real-time parking information, but advice based on how hard it norma

APCOA Parking has recognised the achievements of employees at a dinner and awards ceremony. Trophies were presented to 16 members of staff who the parking operator felt have delivered excellent service and often gone beyond the call of duty. The recipients were drawn from across the company’s on-street and off-street teams in the UK and Ireland. They include both front line staff and those working in back office or contract management roles. Many recipients were recognised for engaging w

Douglas Campbell OBE has been appointed chair of the Independent Scrutiny Board for Parking Appeals on Private Land (ISPA). The board’s remit is to ensure that the POPLA service for adjudicating appeals against parking charge notices (PCNs) issued on private land is independent and fair.  The board reviews specific areas of POPLA work and considers complaints raised by members of the stakeholder community, primarily operators and motorists. The board makes recommendations to POPLA fo

Owning and driving an electric vehicle (EV) in the UK isn’t as simple as it should be. Unlike some other European countries where EV driving is more widely adopted and better facilitated, the UK has been late to the EV party, until now. The Department for Transport (DfT) recently released a consultation for the upcoming Modern Transport Bill, which has promised to pump serious investment into the UK’s infrastructure, supporting EV charging in the future – £35m to be prec

Car-sharing could make a major contribution to reducing traffic congestion, vehicle emissions and pressure on parking. This is what the various local government agencies the capital believe. In May 2015 Transport for London (TfL), the Greater London Authority and London Councils teamed up with Carplus, a charity promoting car-sharing and a number of car club operators to produce a car club strategy for the capital. The document stated: “An ambitious approach to growing car clubs could ach

The long list of entries to the British Parking Awards 2017 has been unveiled. This year the competition has attracted over 90 submissions that are now being assessed by the jury.The British Parking Awards encompass the worlds of traffic management, architecture, enforcement, technology and property.This year there are entries from local authorities, commercial operators, rail companies, universities, retailers, consruction companies, equipment suppliers and many others. To see the 2017 entry li

There has been much discussion surrounding virtual permits in the parking industry, but we should also consider the possibility of the virtual penalty charge notice (PCN). With the ubiquity of the internet and the ability to transfer PCN information in real-time to back office databases, the virtual PCN seems inevitable. Of course, current government legislation and approved operator schemes require that a PCN issued by a civil enforcement officer (CEO) on-street and ‘in-person’ off

A UK parking company now offers electric vehicle (EV) charging across its UK car parking network, including Tesla Destination Chargers. CitiPark is offering customers the chance to use three Tesla Destination charging bays and 13 universal charging bays at its flagship Merrion Centre car park in Leeds. The universal bays are designed to cater for a wide range of electric vehicles. Tesla Destination charging points were first installed at CitiPark’s Leeds Dock car park in August 2016. Tes

The latest Annual Report from Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA), the first from Ombudsman Services, provides a comprehensive account of the numbers of PCNs appealed as well as providing important clarification on some commonly contested topics. These include interpretation of the 10-minute grace period and how the Ombudsman deals with mitigating circumstances. Since launching POPLA in 2012, the BPA has transformed the management of parking on private land and delivered truly independent a

When Ombudsman Services was awarded a contract by the British Parking Association to operate the Parking on Private Land Appeals (POPLA) service it spent many months preparing before going live at the end of 2015. But, as the organisation’s first POPLA annual report reveals, practice was no substitute for real world experience. When motorists breach terms and conditions in privately owned car parks, their vehicles will receive a parking charge notice. If the notice is left unpaid, the lan

When it comes to parking a car, there are a lot of things that can compromise service standards and antagonise motorists. Among the more obvious bugbears are inadequate or badly located signage, nonsensical traffic regulation orders, poorly maintained facilities, inconvenient payment arrangements, heavy-handed enforcement and the antics of persistent evaders. Faced with such frustrations and a perception that parking is a money-spinner for struggling local authorities and unscrupulous private c

Britannia Parking has upgraded pay & display machines at West Quay Retail Park in Southampton to enable shoppers to pay using contactless technology. Britannia, which runs the 900 spaces at West Quay Retail Park on behalf of Aviva Life & Pensions UK, has installed 13 Parkeon terminals at the site. All the Strada Rapide Evo 2 terminals accept contactless bank card payments in addition to chip & PIN and coin transactions. Each terminal has also been enabled to accept the new £

An online system developed for handling appeals lodged by motorists against parking and traffic penalties has won an award. The Traffic Penalty Tribunal and the Parking And Traffic Regulations Outside London (PATROL) joint committee won the Excellence in Technology Award at the North of England Transport Awards 2016 for the online parking appeal system FOAM (Fast Online Appeal Management).  The award was announced on 7 December at the Midland Hotel in Manchester at the prize’s inaugu

Nick Lester-Davis has retired from his role as corporate director of services at London Councils, the cross-party organisation that represents the capital’s 32 borough councils and the Corporation of London. For almost a decade he has been responsible for the London-wide service delivery in the fields of traffic and transport, grant to voluntary organisations, databases in adult and childrens services and improvement of local services.  Lester-Davis has also been the face of public p

The surplus produced from council parking operations in England has reached a record high of just over three-quarters of a billion pounds, analysis by the RAC Foundation has revealed. In the 2015-16 financial year, the 353 local authorities in England generated a combined surplus of £756m from their on-street and off-street parking activities. This is a 9% increase on the 2014-15 figure of £693m, and 34% higher than in 2011-12. The figures are calculated

The evolution of parking enforcement teams into ambassadors for local authorities is explored in a short film produced by the Association of Public Service Excellence (APSE). The film, More than Just the Ticket, looks at Warwickshire County Council’s relationship with contractor NSL to promote the benefits of a multi-functional workforce. APSE is a not-for-profit network that promotes improved ways of working across local government, the police, fire services and the public sector. 

Airport Parking and Hotels (APH) was named Best Airport Parking Company at the British Travel Awards for a seventh year in succession. The British Travel Awards are voted for exclusively by the travelling public, with over 250,000 consumers taking part this year. Nick Caunter, APH managing director, said: “We’re extremely honoured to win such a prestigious award and to do so seven years running is a true testament to the hard-work carried out by the APH team. It goes without saying

Britain’s mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, has launched a road and transport management product to support street works planning and notifications, as well as help transport professionals make informed decisions on asset management and route planning. The OS MasterMap Highways Network system enables OS to provide the facts about the physical dimensions, accessibility and ownership of roads and paths, as well as who is responsible for maintaining them. The system covers current and future

A car park created by farmers to provide spaces for rail users in Northamptonshire has received a Park Mark. Farming family Jackson & Co identified the need for parking at Long Buckby Station after noticing how many cars were parked on adjacent roads. The family obtained planning permission for a 290-space car park, helping reduce the number of vehicles parked on the approach road. The car park is operated for the family by Indigo Park Solutions. The Jackson family said: “We are rea

Users of the RingGo cashless parking service experienced problems paying for parking on 23 November, prompting concerns among drivers that they would receive penalty charge notices (PCNs) despite attempting to pay. RingGo, which is provided by Cobalt Telephone Technologies, is available in over 230 towns and cities nationwide. The system is used by 125 local authorities, by private parking operators, at NHS sites, universities and at rail stations. Cobalt has apologised for the issues faced by

The efficient management of the kerbside and roadspace is essential to the health, wealth and vitality of urban centres. These were central themes of Parking World 2016, which took place in London on 24 November.  Over 250 people attended Parking World to listen to a programme featuring over 50 speakers from across UK and Europe. There were presentations by local authorities, academics, consultants, architects, technologists, campaigners and contractors. The programme was devised by Mark

INRIX’s Off-Street Parking and Fuel services will be made available in Porsche’s new Panamera vehicles in Europe and North America. The system will enable drivers to find, compare and navigate to available off-street parking spaces, as well as search for and drive to filling stations offering the lowest fuel prices. Andreas Hecht, executive vice president and general manager of automotive at INRIX said: “Dynamic services are no longer just a selling point but a requirement. As

Whilst cars have grown in height, capacity and weight, the fundamental dimensions for both new build and refurbished car parks remain largely unchanged. What may have been an easy car park to access and egress in the Sixties may now be considered as a tight and awkward place to park. The changing shape of cars is just one of many factors that affect the operation and performance of parking structures over time. These include changes in standards for lighting, security and the design and robustn

The London Borough of Lambeth has made tackling environmental crimes such as fly-tipping, littering, spitting, urinating and dog fouling a priority.  The south London council has signed a contract with APCOA UK & Ireland that will see its civil enforcement officers (CEOs) expand their role beyond enforcing parking regulations to become responsible for issuing fines for environmental crimes.  “Managing our streets goes beyond just ticketing illegally parked cars,” said

The British Parking Awards 2017 are open for entries. The annual competition recognises excellence in parking policy, design and management. The awards span the on-street and off-street parking sectors, encompassing the planning, design and management of both structures and operations. There are also categories that recognise the achievements of individuals and teams working in the parking sector. The awards also categories that recognise innovative systems and business approaches. The categor

#OurDay is a social media event designed to highlight and celebrate the diverse work carried out by local government across the UK. This year’s 24-hour ‘tweetathon’ saw messages posted by council teams running libraries, adult care, lighting, highways and, as we showcase here, parking. #OurDay, which has been taking place for the last four years, seeks to demonstrate the value local government provides to the public, even as councils work in a challenging financial environment

The efficient management of the kerbside and roadspace is essential to the health, wealth and vitality of urban centres. This will be a central theme of Parking World 2016, which takes place at the Kia Oval in London on 24 November.  There will be sessions on: the provision and regulation of parking in town and city centres; the workplace parking levy concept; fighting Blue Badge fraud; and the development of online parking payment and booking services. To book your place click here (Quot

Two-thirds of motorists have suffered damage to their vehicles while parking, according to RAC Insurance. Supermarket car parks emerged as the place most likely places to suffer damage. The research, conducted online with 1,464 members of the RAC Opinion Panel, revealed that more than a third (35%) of drivers had damaged their car at least once and 31% said it had happened on several occasions. Of those who have been affected multiple times, 28% say they have endured it three times and nearly a

The Independent Appeals Service (IAS) deals with appeals from motorists issued with parking charge notices for parking on private land issued by members of The Independent Parking Community (IPC). The IAS operates two separate types of appeal: the Standard Appeal process, and the Non-Standard Appeal process. In every case where the Non-Standard service is made available to the consumer, they have already had the opportunity to use a free service but have failed to avail themselves of it. Around

A personal transportation system designed to fit neatly into the boot space usually occupied by a car’s spare wheel is among the finalists in a Ford challenge to create future mobility solutions for urban areas. The Carr-E, developed by Kilian Vas, a Ford systems engineer based in Cologne, Germany, was among 633 proposals for persona

Ford is developing braking technology to reduce the stress of parking by detecting people and objects about to pass behind the vehicle. The system will provide a warning to the driver and then automatically brake if the driver does not respond. Ford said that research suggests that a quarter of accidents in the UK occur in car parks and that almost half of drivers say they would rather travel further from their destination than attempt to parallel park. The Cross Traffic Alert with Braking solu

The award winning parking manager Mirsad Bakalovic has been appointed to the newly created position of head of Civic Pride at the London Borough of Redbridge. He was previously head of parking, mobility and transport services at Tower Hamlets council. Bakalovic’s new role at Redbridge is part of a wholesale restructuring of the council, led by new chief executive Andy Donald. The council has built a new framework, with four new directorates - People, Place, Resources and Strategy - which

Siemens ITS will host its first traffic enforcement user group forum this month. More than 50 road safety and civil enforcement representatives from local authorities across the UK will assemble in London on? 9 November to discuss parking and civil enforcement technology. The meeting takes place at The Crystal, an educational initiative through which Siemens

Lambeth Council has appointed NSL to deliver environmental enforcement service across the south London borough. The service will see fixed penalty notices (FPNs) issued to members of the public aged 18 or above for littering or spitting and for failing to pick up dog foul.  The FPNs for littering and spitting will be £80 and those for dog fouling will be £50. The new team of environmental enforcement officers (EEOs) will be based in International House. They will work alongsid

People living in, working in and visiting a group of historic towns and villages in Dorset can now order parking permits online as and when they need them. Christchurch Borough Council and East Dorset District Council, which operate a joint parking team, have ended the use of paper-based parking permits and opted for a virtual permit solution to manage access to resident, business, visitor and Blue Badge permits in towns such as Chichester and and Wimbourne Minster, which are popular tourist des

Cashless parking provider RingGo experienced a 30% increase in use of its corporate phone parking service between July and September. RingGo says its B2B product handled 150,000 sessions in September alone. Water, gas and electricity utilities companies are among the organisations using RingGo Corporate to make business parking payments. Employees are signed up to a monthly subscription service and in return pay for their parking by mobile phone from a prepaid account. There is no need for comp

Over 200 car parks now hold a Disabled Parking Accreditation (DPA) under a scheme launched by Disabled Motoring UK (DMUK). The charity says that take-up of the accreditation has gathered momentum since the British Parking Association (BPA) started administering the scheme in April. To achieve a DPA car park owners and operators must implement management strategies to ensure that there is enforcement and appropriate provision of disabled bays, as well as adequate facilities for their disabled cu

General Motors and IBM are to work in partnership to launch a “cognitive mobility platform” that will use machine learning technology, data analysis and partnerships to make drivers more efficient. The partnership will see the IBM Watson artificial intelligence platform used to enhance GM’s existing OnStar AtYourService. The new OnStar Go system will enable drivers to avoid traffic congestion when they low are on fuel or order a cup of coffee while on the go. From early 2017

A scheme that sees Croydon Council close a residential road so that families can play safely outdoors has been voted the best in London. Croydon introduced Play Streets by making it easier for residents to apply for temporary road closures. More than 50 children and their parents from Love Lane in the Woodside area held their first Play Street event in September 2015. The event enabled residents to enjoy games in the sunshine while the council kept their road temporarily traffic-free. Love La

Tension and conflict over parking spaces provided the drama in the latest run of Parking Wars on ITV. For this third series, the Century Films production team toured the country looking at places where parking restrictions and new payment regimes were causing concern among motorists, local businesses and visitors. The camera crews followed local authority civil enforcement officers (CEOs) as they patrolled the streets in different parts of the country. Reports from Hereford, Romford and Havering

Ford has added parking location and payment options to its FordPass service. The car-maker is actively expanding its business model so that it operates as both an automotive and mobility company. The FordPass is a key element of this move. Unveiled in January, FordPass is a free digital, physical and personal platform designed not only to alleviate anxiety over parking, but to offer mobility solutions for car owners and non-car owners alike.  Ford hopes the new parking functions will take

Portsmouth City Council is adding school safety to the range of enforcement applications running on its hosted Digital Video Platform. The council is deploying the Videalert system outside schools where illegal parking on ‘Keep clears’ has been identified as putting children’s lives in danger.  The cameras are being installed after a survey of parents, teachers and school governors showed an overwhelming 84% support for the initiative. Cllr Jim Fleming, Portsmouth City C

Car Parking Management (CPM) is providing consumers with the ability to book and pay for parking online for the first time. The management company has teamed up with Parkonomy.com, a website that offers car park search, booking and payment. CPM, which has been in business for 15 years, provides signage, pay & display machines and managing cash collection. It operates around 30 car parks for a range of local authorities, hotels, arts venues and public utilities. All its sites are now covered

Vienna’s paper parking permits will be replaced by RFID tags following an extensive trial of the technology. The on-street parking permits were developed by city officers in collaboration with system supplier Schreiner PrinTrust. The credit card shaped tag is based on the Windshield Label Global system. The tags will be attached to the vehicle’s windscreen. They feature an embedded driver identification number and can be valid for multiple permits and used in different districts of

Raising money is a major part of an entrepreneur’s life. Alongside meetings with banks, pitches to angel investors and private equity companies, other ways of raising funds include applying for business development grants, entering competitions, using crowdfunding and even appearing on TV shows. Dan Hubert, co-founder and chief executive of AppyParking, made an appearance on the BBC Two show Dragons’ Den last month, pitching the parking app to a line-up of multi-millionaires from a r

Standards within the parking industry have improved dramatically over the past two decades. Tighter legislation and improved codes of practice have had a major impact. But that’s not all; we shouldn’t lose sight of the determination and efforts of many parking service providers in both the public and private sector to deliver the best possible service for customers. But, whatever standards prevail, there’s no room for complacency.  The industry can be proud of the progres

PARK(ing) Day is an annual event that sees cities around the world convert parking bays into ‘Parklets’, temporary spaces where people can sit, talk, read books, listen to music and play games. This year’s event took place on 16 September, with an estimated 1,000 parklets being created in around 35 countries. PARK(ing) Day was launched in 2005 in San Francisco by an art and design collective called Rebar. Their original intention was to take over a parking bay for a couple of

Parking pay stations are set to have a whole new lease of life, transformed from single function machines into smart terminals that offer a range of public services. Alongside taking payment for parking, the next generation of terminals will enable people to rent bikes, charge their electric cars and even monitor the quality of the air they breathe. This is the vision of Bertrand Barthélemy, chief executive of parking and transport solution provider Parkeon. He envisages the company&rsqu

With the success of digital marketplaces such as Airbnb, as well as businesses that don’t own any of the inventory they sell such as booking.com, Silicon Valley trawled the world for the next industry it could monetise and found it in parking. So it was that, between 2013 and 2015, a staggering US$243m (£170m) was invested in digital-first parking marketplaces, with over half of that sum invested in the last six months.  These investors are making big bets that they can change

Parking consultancy Buchanan Order Management has moved into larger premises to improve facilities for visitors and to accommodate its expanding team. Buchanan Order Management (BOM) outgrew its premises in Thatcham, but decided to remain in the West Berkshire area. Its new premises in Newbury are in a converted period barn, with modern facilities and easy access for staff and visitors. Trevor Clark, director of BOM, said: “One reason for our expansion is the increased demand from authori

Civil enforcement officers working for NSL will act as the eyes and ears of a missing children initiative. Child Rescue Alert was set up by the charity Missing People in partnership with the National Crime Agency and Groupcall to ensure that as many people as possible keep a lookout for missing children.  NSL CEOs have become part of the network of people keeping a look out for missing children featured in Missing People’s alerts.  This initiative follows work by Paul Abbott, a

Motorists are more concerned about parking availability and cost than 12 months ago, according to the RAC. The motoring organisation’s annual report is based on the views of a representative sample of 1,700 drivers from across the UK. The research reveals that the availability of parking has become a greater concern in 2016: 14% of motorists say this is one of their top four concerns this year, compared with 8% in 2015. Around 18% of motorists also say the cost of parking is now

A druid is taking legal action over the introduction of parking charges during the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge, claiming they “unfairly target” his religion. Parking at the neolithic monument usually costs £5, but in June English Heritage introduced a £15 fee for parking during special events. The parking charge is designed to encourage people to car share or travel by bus. King Arthur Pendragon believes the £15 fee is illegal and excludes

A dozen car parks in the Lincolnshire towns of Stamford and Grantham have retained their Park Mark status under the Safer Parking Scheme. The car parks are operated by South Kesteven District Council, which was recently awarded the Disabled Parking Accreditation from Disabled Motoring UK. Cllr Nick Craft, executive member for the environment, said: “We’re pleased to announce a further award for our car parks that shows we are maintaining good standards year on year.

APCOA UK & Ireland has launched a new online customer portal that will provide information for its APCOA’s client base and key partners. The portal will features internal APCOA news, case studies, stand-alone research, thought leadership pieces and political reports. The portal is designed to provide a seamless connection between customers and APCOA via alerts timed to accompany the release of key items and providing tem with the ability to contact their account mana

The use of contactless cards has soared in the UK over the past year, according to market research company Mintel. Some 39% of people have a contactless debit card to make a payment over the past year, up from 28% of people in 2015. Similarly, contactless credit are used by 34% of people, up from 28% in 2015.  For the first time, people in Britain are more likely to make a payment using a contactless card than a cheque book. The research from Mintel reveals that cheq

Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz cars will be able to locate available on-street parking spaces via a digital mapping service that processes information collected by sensors from the cars themselves. The HERE Open Location Platform will harness real-time data generated by vehicles’ on-board sensors to create a live depiction of the road ahead. HERE plans to make the services commercially available to any customers both within and outside the automotive industry from the first half of 2017.&nbs

Drivers of Mercedes-Benz C-Class and S-Classes in Europe and the USA can now find information about off-street parking in real-time. The car-maker has adopted the INRIX Off-Street Parking service, which provides real-time information on car park location, number of spaces, detailed rates and current occupancy levels. Drivers will access the parking data via BMW’s COMAND infotainment system. The INRIX Off-Street Parking parking database features 29 million confirmed spaces in over 90,000

Navigation and mapping specialist TomTom has launched an On-Street Parking service designed to help drivers find available parking spots. TomTom uses GPS data to determine where drivers are looking for parking places and at what times of the day. The On-Street Parking service provides drivers with the probability of finding a parking spot at street level, as well as the average search-time for a spot. TomTom will also publish pricing and restriction information where available. 

Waze, a community-based traffic and navigation app that rounds up information shared by drivers, has opted to incorporate parking information provided by connected car services company INRIX. The Waze app recommends the fastest routes based on real-time driving and data from more than 50 million users in North America and Europe. Besides traffic re-routes it also provides low fuel price alerts as well as offers from a number of brands. Waze launched a “Where to park” feature on And

The chair of the panel that scrutinises the British Parking Association’s appeals service for motorists issued parking charge notices on private land has resigned. Nicola Mullany has resigned from the Independent Scrutiny for Parking Appeals (ISPA), but an announcement that the entire board of ISPA had also stepped down has been thrown into doubt. It currently remains unclear whether the board is in place. Parking Review has asked ISPA’s administrators for clarification. The now wi

NCP wants to rename one of its London car parks as “The Sarah multi-Storey” to honour sporting achievements of the British athlete Dame Sarah Storey. NCP has suggested it will rename its Saffron Hill Car Park to mark the sporting achievements of Storey, a multiple gold medal winner in road and track cycling events at the Paralympics. Hema Nagar, head of marketing at NCP said: “Given her name, we felt that Dame Sarah Storey might appreciate our gesture. She has made an unr

Q-Park UK has received the People’s Parking accreditation to its portfolio of 67 car parks. The People’s Parking scheme is an accreditation for car parks that provide customers with a range of facilities and services. It aims to allow parkers to easily find the most suitable and convenient parking when travelling. People’s Parking was launched earlier this year by Helen Dolphin, a mobility consultant and a disability rights campaigner. The scheme’s criteria cover issues

Scores of East Midlands Trains stations and car parks have been officially recognised for their safety and security by two national schemes. Some 58 stations on the network have been accredited under the Secure Stations Scheme, which is administered by the Department for Transport and British Transport Police. The scheme represents a national standard for passenger safety and security on Britain’s railway stations. Some 23 of the stations have been newly accredited follow

PARK(ing) Day, which sees citizens, artists and activists around the world temporarily transform parking spaces into temporary public places, will next take place on Friday 16 September.  The project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco. Since then, PARK(ing) Day has evolved into a global movement, with organisations and individuals (operating independently of Rebar

The London Borough of Bexley is installing automated enforcement systems to capture moving traffic contraventions.  The mix of fixed and redeployable cameras will supplement the council’s existing fleet of CCTV cars and enable enforcement to be extended to improve driver compliance.  The contract has been awarded to OpenView Security Solutions, a provider of CCTV solutions, under the ELS framework agreement, which can be accessed by all London boroughs and allows direct and fas

Northgate Public Services (NPS) has launched an enforcement and permits management solution designed for local authorities, housing associations and hospitals managing car parks. The NPS TaP system encompasses both parking permits and the issue and processing of charge notices against vehicles that breach regulations. NPS runs a number of transport and ticketing schemes including the national HGV Levy and Blue Badge schemes, as well as being the IT supplier for London Tribunals, which adjudica

Lewis Johnson has joined parking information provider Parkopedia in the new role of technical account manager. Johnson joins Parkopedia from Smart Parking. "Technical account managers are responsible for managing all technical aspects of a company’s relationship with its customers,” said Christina Onesirosan Martinez, Parkopedia's marketing director.  “They work closely with the sales and business account management team to win new business and increase sales to existing

Q-Park has started refurbishment of Liverpool’s Queen Square car park, a site it acquired from developer Promenade Estates in December 2015. The operator is spending around £750,000 upgrading the 601-space facility. The car park will be given a new entrance area, with upgraded barrier and pay-on-foot systems. New lighting sensor systems will be installed throughout the 14 floors. The car park’s external and internal signage will be redesigned improve way finding. The lobby are

Two London boroughs, Hackney and Islington, have transferred their phone parking services to RingGo during the summer.  Hackney Council transferred its entire operations to RingGo on 10 July, changing 1,500 signs and stickers across the borough in a single day. More than 1,100 temporary signs were posted to give drivers advance notice of the changeover, and 50,000 text and email messages were sent to new and existing users.  Islington Council carried out a phased transfer during Augu

Stephen Rennie, a specialist in low carbon and sustainable transport, has joined electric vehicle (EV) charge point supplier Evolt as business development manager for Scotland. Rennie has spent his career working in the low carbon industry, including eight years with the Energy Saving Trust (EST), where he managed the delivery of grant-funded schemes for the installation of EV charge points. As EST programme manager, during 2014-15 he oversaw the delivery of 16 low carbon transport programmes,

Fiona Deans, who has a background in the cinema industry, has joined parking IT specialist Barbour Logic (BL) as managing director. Previously she was chief operating officer of Arts Alliance Media (AAM), a technology and software services provider to the cinema industry.  At AAM Fiona oversaw company growth from start up to a leading technology company with 120 employees, revenues of over £50m and customers in the US, China, Asia Pacific, Latin America and across Europe. Before join

Q-Park has taken over the management of the Pierhead Street car park in Cardiff. The car park has been rebranded as Q-Park Cardiff Bay ahead of a refurbishment programme.  The car park, sometimes referred to as ‘The Wave’ on account of its façade’s distinctive cladding, had been operated by APCOA UK & Ireland. The multi-storey provides 1,238 spaces for residents and office workers in the Cardiff Waterside development. It also has an exclusive parking partnersh

Disabled drivers are all too used to finding bays designated for their use occupied by cars belonging to people with no mobility issues. In a bid to show how this selfish behaviour affects the lives of disabled people, on 8 August a council blocked kerbside spaces in a High Street with wheel chairs. The Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead staged the intervention on Ascot High Street to raise awareness of people without Blue Badges about the impact of parking in disabled bays. Windsor &a

Outsourced service provider NSL plans to double the size of the workforce at its operational centre in Oldham. The principal activities at NSL’s Oldham offices are telephony, correspondence, back office processing and vetting for public and private sector clients.   Its local authority parking clients in the North West include Manchester City Council and Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council. When NSL moved into offices in Chadderton in 2012 it had 10 members of staff. The company now

As the people who engage with the public in the real world, civil enforcement officers have become a source of intelligence and inspiration for Adam Palser since he became chief executive of NSL in 2015. He has set out to empower the CEOs to change and develop the business by sharing their experiences and ideas. “Since joining NSL I have been getting to know the sector and I have learned that our CEOs really know the business. Who better to help run a better business?” he asks. Pal

Revenue generation is a difficult topic for the public sector to address and embrace. For our part we firmly believe that, with the inexorable pressure on funding and an ever-growing demand for services, councils should no longer be apologetic or defensive about the selective use of revenue generation in certain service areas. Our own experience on this topic has seen our partnerships generate savings and surplus revenue for local authority partners to reinvest in infrastructure and other frontl

Civil enforcement officers are the front line of the UK’s public parking management regimes. These uniformed staff are tasked with ensuring the kerbside operates efficiently, enabling people and businesses to park or deliver and collect goods where and when they need. While civil enforcement officers (CEOs) will bear the names and insignia of local authorities, many will be employees for contractors, and a good proportion will work for NSL, which fields over 4,000 CEOs in towns and cities

SWARCO Traffic has launched the Smart City Messenger, a new generation of mobile variable message signs (VMS) with built-in urban traffic management control (UTMC) connectivity. The company says this will give local authorities the same level of management and control as their fixed installations.  The signs have been designed for use in for traffic management during roadworks or events. The Smart City Messenger signs incorporate LED technology that offers a high contrast ratio, wide viewi

London’s Waltham Forest Council has been working with its parking contractor to tackle environmental crimes such as littering, spitting and dog fouling. These tasks had been performed in-house, but at the end of last year NSL began enforcing low-level crimes, allowing the council’s neighbourhoods officers to focus their time on larger issues such as fly-tipping. For the pilot phase NSL created a team of four environmental enforcement (EE) officers and a team manager. NSL told Parkin

Chargemaster has taken over responsibility for operating and maintaining all 124 electric vehicle (EV) charging points at Q-Park’s London facilities. The charging points became part of Chargemaster’s POLAR public charging network on 1 August. The POLAR network is comprised of more than 4,000 charging points across the UK. Chargemaster plans to install additional charging points at the Q-Park sites over the coming months.

Q-Park has established a local customer service centre for the British and Irish markets. The Dutch group had previously networked enquiries made using help-points within its car parks in the UK and Ireland to a central control room at Maastricht in the the Netherlands. The move has been driven by the desire to offer even quicker support to Q-Park customers whilst giving the company a platform to continue the growth whilst opening new facilities across the region.

NCP has launched NCP ParkPass, an account-based solution that can be used in place of cash, credit or debit cards at payment machines. Registered account holders receive an NCP ParkPass card that is inserted on arrival and on exit at the barrier of any enabled car park. Payments are then calculated and automatically processed. ParkPass holders also receive a discount for their stay, currently set at a minimum 10% of the transaction. Following a pilot of the solution, NCP ParkPass has been avail

Alphabet, the parent of Google, has ambitions to transform the way in which public transportation and other city services, including parking, are managed.  The international conglomerate has been investing heavily in automated cars, street mapping and cloud computing, so a move into smart city management is not surprising.  Alphabet has established an innovation centre called Sidewalk Labs whose remit is to improve urban infrastructure through technological solutions. Sidewalk Labs i

Parking operations consume a lot of energy. Car parks need to be lit to make customers feel safe. Enforcement patrol vehicles need fuel. Back office computer systems consume power and their processes generate a lot of paper. In the parking sector many organisations are seeking to mitigate or reduce their environmental impact and carbon footprint.  Car park decks now feature solar panels and wind turbines, while energy saving systems manage lighting on their internal decks. Pay stations wil

Parkopedia is to provide a parking information service to Apple Maps, the web mapping system developed by Apple.  Parkopedia holds details of more than 40 million parking bays in 75 countries in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America.  Apple Maps is the default mapping system on the iOS mobile operating systems, the OS X system for Apple computers and the watchOS for the Apple Watch. Apple Map users will now be able to view key information about parking garages and lots aroun

APCOA Parking Group is set to offer 200 new electric vehicle (EV) charging stations across Germany before extending the network across other European markets. The parking company is working in partnership The New Motion, a leading provider of intelligent charging solutions. Some 100 EV charge points are already in operation at 35 APCOA sites across Germany and by the end of the year there will be around 200 EV charge points at 100 sites. “APCOA has set itself the task of

Most drivers are broadly satisfied with the services on offer at motorway services areas, but major improvements are needed to the facilities provided for heavy goods vehicle (HGV) drivers, says independent watchdog Transport Focus. The organisation’s new report, Take a Break, examines the views of drivers and road users on roadside facilities in the UK. Jeff Halliwell, Transport Focus’s chairman, said: “People’s needs are largely functional. They want to use the toile

Local authorities enforcing parking and traffic regulations outside London in England and Wales will be paying less for the administration of appeals made by motorists. The PATROL Adjudication Joint Committee has reduced its charges to member authorities from 45p to 40p per penalty charge notice (PCN). The reduction is backdated to 1 April 2016. This is the latest in a series of price reductions. Over the last five years, member authorities undertaking civil parking enforcement

Debt recovery specialist Bristow & Sutor has launched an app that enables debtors to manage their relationship with the company via their smartphone. The app gives debtors access to the company’s Debtor Portal and allows them to view their own case details, to set up arrangements and make payments. Normal 0 false

The YourParkingSpace.co.uk online marketplace reports that it has seen a surge in holidaymakers opting to rent driveways rather than conventional airport parking services. YourParkingSpace says that bookings of parking spaces within a 10-minute drive of the UK’s biggest airports are up by 160% in 2016 compared with the same period last year. Research conducted by YourParkingSpace showed that the biggest airport parking savings could be achieved at Gatwick airport.  Official car par

Holidaymakers travelling from London’s Heathrow Airport are being offered the chance to book their vehicles into the Car Park?Hotel VIP experience. Heathrow Airport launched its Good to Go holiday parking service with a summer parking promotion which offered holidaymakers the opportunity to get a valet experience in the multi-storey car parks near terminals 2 and 3. Good to?Go offers three different parking services – Park & Ride, Meet & Greet and Drop & Ride. Prices sta

The London Borough of Bromley is installing an automated enforcement system to increase road safety outside five schools experiencing high levels of inconsiderate behaviour from parents parking on the yellow ‘keep clears’ when dropping off or collecting their children. The Videalert CCTV  system is also being installed to automate the enforcement of bus lanes in the south London borough.  The contract has been awarded to OpenView Security Solutions, a provider of CCTV sys

Learner drivers will be tested on their parking prowess as part of changes designed to ensure the driving test better reflects everyday experience of driving. The ‘reverse around a corner’ and ‘turn in the road’ manoeuvres will be replaced by more real-life scenarios such as driving into and reversing out of a parking bay. Besides including more realistic parking manoeuvres, the test will assess the use of driving aids such as satellite navigation. The independent drivi

The multi-storey car park serving The Belfry shopping centre in Redhill, Surrey, has been equipped with a pay-on-foot system linked to ANPR cameras. The Belfry is Redhill’s main shopping hub and its 780-space car park serves both the mall and High Street. Shopping centre manager Andy Nash said: “As the shopping centre was getting busier and busier we recognised the need for an access system with better reliability and service, and that could benefit the centre in the future. We rele

Many of the holidaymakers arriving at Heathrow are on organised tours, which means they are delivered to and collected from the airport’s terminals by coaches. The movements of around 40,000 coaches a year have to be integrated with the arrivals and departures on the runways. When APCOA UK & Ireland took over the operation of Heathrow Airport’s Associated Services contract in April 2014 it became responsible for the management of the group travel coach operation.  The high

Rebuilding a rail station that sits opposite the entrance of Hatfield House, one of England’s greatest stately homes, posed both a design and a logistical challenge for Network Rail. In a move that may surprise some, it was a challenge largely solved by building a multi-storey car park. Hatfield Station is located on the East Coast mainline, 17 miles north of London Kings Cross. The station is owned by Network Rail and operated by Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR). Over the past three years t

Managing station car parks requires providing rail travellers with a hassle-free experience that lets them focus on catching their train. They should also feel confident about leaving their car for hours or days at a time. High Speed 1 (HS1) is the railway between St Pancras International in London and the Channel Tunnel. HS1 connects London to the Continent via high-speed Eurostar services to Paris, Disneyland, Lille, Marseilles, Brussels and beyond. It also links the capital to Kent, with high

Imperial Civil Enforcement Solutions (ICES) is marketing ParkFinder, a smartphone app that enables drivers to locate available parking spaces without local authorities or parking operators having to invest in bay sensor technology.  The app has been trialled in Europe, including a pilot in the Spanish capital Madrid. ICES has acquired the system from Apparcar, the company responsible for developing the new technology using investment from Telefonica. The new app will be integrated with IC

Paying for parking should be accessible to all. That is a fundamental belief for METRIC. As a parking terminal manufacturer, we go to great lengths to ensure our machines are inclusively designed so that the user experience is straightforward and easy. We offer all methods of payments on our parking terminals: coins and banknotes; credit and debit cards; and contactless payments, including the latest developments such as ApplePay. We believe this offers the car park user more choice and more fle

Stephen Brown says engaging with the membership will be the central vision of his term as president of the British Parking Association (BPA). In his inaugural address at the House of Commons on 29 June, Brown said he wanted to communicate with members and show them what the BPA could do for them. “I plan to visit every region and country meeting as part of the BPA’s commitment to supporting their needs and aspirations,” he said. Brown joined the Army as a teenager in 1978 and

Barry Francis, formerly assistant director for parking services at the London Borough of Ealing, has joined outsourcing service provider NSL as a regional account director. Francis will oversee the management and development of NSL contracts including the London boroughs of Hammersmith & Fulham, Wandsworth and Camden, and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, as well as London Councils and Royal Parks. The appointment sees Francis return to NSL after an absence of seven years, havi

Car park waterproofing system manufacturer Triflex UK has appointed Jonny Cross as business development manager, with responsibility for its car parks and infrastructure business unit across Scotland.  Cross has worked in the Scottish construction sector for several years with SIG Construction Accessories and, most recently, Fosroc.  Normal 0 false

Parking arrangements are to be revised along the seafront in Skegness. Lincolnshire County Council says that cars parking on both sides of the road on the seafront lead to congestion through the summer months and also make it difficult for pedestrians to cross safely. Last summer the council trialled marked bays allocated to coaches dropping passengers off on the seafront. The trial was deemed a success so further restrictions will come into force permanently on 4 July to further regulate

A grass-roofed motorway service area has been honoured by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Gloucester Services is one of 46 projects on the 2016 RIBA National Awards list. The list also includes offices, schools, offices, hospitals, libraries, art studios and galleries, R&D facilities, performance spaces and private homes.  RIBA praised the sensitive design of the main building parking areas at Gloucester Services, which is located at Junction 11a on the M5. The j

PATROL, a body representing over 300 local authorities undertaking parking and traffic enforcement has called for clarity on the legislation used to enforce moving traffic regulations. PATROL (Parking and Traffic Regulations Outside London) is a joint committee of over 300 councils who undertake civil parking enforcement. Over 50 councils in England have introduced civil bus lane enforcement under the Transport Act 2000 (TA) over the past decade. However, councils in England outside London can

The INRIX Off-Street Parking service, which enables drivers to find, compare and navigate to parking spaces, is now available in the Mercedes-Benz E-Class in Europe and will be released in the USA during the summer.  The system can be accessed via the COMAND infotainment system. “In the era of the connected car, having access to dynamic parking information is no longer a luxury for drivers but a necessity,” said Andreas Hecht, executive vice president and general manager of au

NCP says drivers will be able to pre-book spaces at nearly 200 of its car parks nationwide by the end of this year. Some 150 sites already offering pre-booking via a website, mobile or by phone through the company’s Manchester-based customer contact centre.  Spaces can be booked up to six hours before they are required. Through the service, NCP guarantees customers a space for them to use on arrival, subject to availability at the time of booking.  Max Crane-Robinson, commercia

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council has retained APCOA UK & Ireland as its parking contractor, expanding the company’s remit to include off-street parking management as well as on-street enforcement. APCOA has worked for the Essex council since 2002. It has been awarded a new seven-year contract said to be worth £6m. The new contract will see the introduction of electric cars and bicycles for civil enforcement officers. The contract encompasses the provision of civil enforcement o

APCOA UK & Ireland has launched an off-airport parking company called Park2Travel. The service currently operates car parks serving Manchester and Leeds Bradford airports. Park2Travel is operating a meet & greet service at Manchester Airport, meaning passengers hand their car to a Park2Travel representative at the terminal. At Leeds Bradford customers have the option of either meet & greet at the terminal or staying at Park2Travel park & ride facility. The company offers addit

Winchester City Council is the first local authority in the south of England to receive the Disabled Parking Accreditation (DPA). The accreditation covers four car parks – Jewry Street, Middle Brook Street, Tower Street and South Winchester Park & Ride. Richard Hein, head of parking services, said: “This accreditation reflects the city council’s commitment to providing high levels of customer service to all and its ongoing investment in its car park stock.”  Th

Flooring technology company Flowcrete Group has appointed Craig Brookes as its new president.  He takes over from Mark Greaves, who becomes president of The Euclid Group, a construction chemicals group within Flowcrete’s parent company, RPM International.  Brookes has been with Flowcrete for 20 years and was previously group vice-president and international managing director. “In my two decades at Flowcrete I’ve seen the company expand and grow from a small UK busin

Workplace parking levies and other innovative financial mechanisms could raise millions for public transport, suggests the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT). The campaign is urging the government to consider broadening the ways in which public transport is financed in the UK, and believes it could learn from innovative schemes like Nottingham’s workplace parking levy (WPL). Research commissioned as part of Campaign for Better Transport’s new thought leadership programme, called Tr

A blogger has used official data to prove that the New York Police Department (NYPD) wrongly ticketed thousands of vehicles that were actually parked legally. Ben Wellington, who has an interest in data, made the discovery after NYPD kept issuing tickets against his car when it was legally parked on a pavement ramp on the street where he lives.  Drivers have been allowed to park in some of these spaces since 2009. The scale of errant parking enforcement by?NYPD became evident when Wellin