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

Island Roads has replaced around 40 ageing parking terminals at a variety of locations across the Isle of Wight with new solar-powered pay & display technology from Flowbird Urban Intelligence. Island Roads is responsible for the Isle of Wight's highways network and associated services. The new machines are the final phase of a rolling programme that has seen more than 130 terminals on the island replaced since 2016. All the terminals linked to Flowbird’s Smartfolio central manageme

Nottingham City Council has adopted a system that uses a terminal to activate phone parking sessions. The council has installed RingGo’s Touchscreen solution at the Harvey Sports Village. The terminal allow users of the sports centre to park for free while providing paid-parking to people visiting the area. The touchscreen terminals are located inside the leisure centre and the parking sessions are stated through the registration of a vehicle. As all sessions are booked and enforced via

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Council has announced that it has signed up to a programme that will see the borough offer completely cashless parking by 2020. The council is working with mobile parking payment provider PayByPhone. The removal of more than 700 parking machines in Kensington and Chelsea will take place in phases in order to give residents and visitors ample time to adjust to the change. PayByPhone signage will be clearly displayed to inform drivers on how to use the

Gloucestershire County Council has introduced technology to prevent misuse of the park & ride site at Arle Court, which is designed to ease congestion in Cheltenham. The P&R site has 576 parking spaces, but people wanting to park & ride regularly have found it difficult to find a space due to motorists parking for free and then walking off site to their place of work, rather than paying to use the bus service into Cheltenham town centre. The increasingly number of ‘park &

Luton Council has selected PayByPhone as its new mobile parking payment provider. PayByPhone will replace RingGo as the exclusive cashless parking provider for the Bedfordshire town from 1 July. Drivers will be able to use PayByPhone’s services to pay for parking across Luton, covering 91 on-street and off-street parking locations. PayByPhone users can choose to receive text message reminders before a parking session expires and can also extend their parking sessions remotely in accordan

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

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has set out plans for an expansion of the capital’s electric vehicle (EV) charging network. Khan wants the public and private sector to work together to deliver EV infrastructure. The new Ultra Low Emission Zone in central London is also designed to encourage companies to electrify their fleets. The plan has been developed with the world’s first Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Taskforce, which is made up representatives from business, energy, infrast

The Welsh Government has exempted housing developers from a requirement to equip new properties with charging points for electric vehicles. The latest version of Planning Policy Wales requires at least 10% of new non-residential parking spaces to have EV charging points, transport minister Ken Skates told an Assembly committee. “The policy focuses on non-residential development to address people’s concerns about not being able to top up when using an electric car,” he said. &l

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

As public services become increasingly digital, local authorities and their system developers will need to work hard to meet the public’s expectation that the solutions on offer are accessible, reliable, secure and sustainable. This was the key message for delegates at the Chipside Annual Conference, which was held at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in London on 28 May. The day served as a forum for Chipside’s 160 local authority clients, who use products such as: t

Parking is changing. Mobility around the world has never been a hotter topic. We now have companies such as Uber, Lyft, Tesla, Google, BMW and many others who have entered the transport industry – and thus inadvertently the parking industry – with the sole purpose of changing the way we get around and connect with our cities’ infrastructure. There are some important questions that we, today’s young parking professionals, have to ask ourselves: As professionals of the

Highland Council has taken over responsibility for parking enforcement from Police Scotland. Highland Council Parking Services was launched in 2016 to take over enforcement activities. During 2016 it assumed responsibility for parking enforcement in local authority car parks and on-street in Inverness and Fort William. On 14 May the second phase of the roll-out saw Highland Council deliver parking enforcement in a further 19 locations in Alness, Brora, Broadford, Dingwall, Dunvegan, Grantown O

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

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

Swansea’s two remaining park & ride sites are to lose their bespoke buses and see staffing reduced as the city council seeks to cut costs. On the plus side, customers will be offered direct buses to more locations, including the major hospital and university campus at Singleton. The authority closed its loss-making and under-used Fforestfach P&R site in 2016. Now officers are tasked with cutting £200,000 a year from the subsidy for the sites at Fabian Way, east of the city ce

A park & ride facility for a Welsh hospital will be closed on 30 June, despite objections from users and politicians. Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) introduced the facility in October 2014 for Ysbyty Glan Clwyd, the general hospital for central North Wales. This followed major construction works at the hospital, which reduced the space available for parking on the hospital campus. Visitors and staff were invited to use the car park of a vacant factory, about a mile from th

Carmarthenshire County Council has launched enforcement using a camera car, with an initial focus on squares in Carmarthen town centre where previous efforts to prevent parking have been frustrated by determined motorists. Parking has been prohibited for several years in Nott Square and Guildhall Square, with vehicular access permitted for unloading only. The council has concerns about pedestrian safety in the squares and adjoining streets if people continue to drive to park in the squares. It

Pupils in Lewisham’s primary schools were invited to design a banner that will be used as part of a campaign against engine idling across the south-east London borough. Lewisham Council selected a design by Mehri from Haseltine Primary School to be turned into a banner and displayed around borough. Road safety goodie bags were presented to second placed Nikita from Rathfern Primary School and third placed Polina from Hatcham Temple Grove Primary School.

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

Videalert, a supplier of traffic management and enforcement solutions, has appointed Stuart Scott as its Northern business development manager. Scott will be responsible for managing relationships and developing business opportunities with new and existing clients across Northern England and Scotland. Scott has over 15 years’ experience of working in both local government and the private sector. He joins from Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council where, as head of highways, he was respons

Disabled Motoring UK works to support the mobility of disabled people, and there is no dispute that people with certain mental health conditions and cognitive disabilities could benefit from having a Blue Badge. However, the charity is very concerned that from August onwards numbers of Blue Badge holders will dramatically increase, that will put more pressure on limited disabled parking that is poorly enforced and in some areas of the country not enforced at all. We are asking that all local au

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

A system for using bay sensors to alert parking authorities to the exact location of vehicles has been piloted using funding from a European connected car progamme. Worldsensing is a Spanish technology provider with over 90 employees and offices in Barcelona, London and Los Angeles. Last year, the company was selected out of 500 applicants as one of 15 start-ups to receive funding from the IMPACT Connected Car acceleration programme. IMPACT focussed on responding to the industrial needs in the

Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council has extended PayByPhone’s contract by 12 months. The mobile parking payment operator processed nearly 1 million transactions for Bournemouth in 2018.  Use of cashless parking increase by 149% since PayByPhone replaced the council’s previous provider. Elaine Smith, the council’s deputy parking services manager, said: “It’s great to see so many drivers across Bournemouth adopt cashless parking services. We have worked

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 number of the worst polluting cars and vans driving into central London dropped sharply in the first month of the new Ultra Low Emissions Zone. Initial figures from Transport for London (TfL) show that on average 9,400 fewer such vehicles entered central London each day in April compared with March, a reduction of 26%. London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, said: “Just one month after launching the world’s first ULEZ, we have already seen a significant impact on the types of vehicles

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

The prospect of a workplace parking levy being introduced in Leicester has become firmer following Labour’s Sir Peter Soulsby being re-elected as the city’s mayor for a third time. Sir Peter’s first choice votes tally of 51,444 saw him take a 61% share. This was 36,924 more votes than second-placed Conservative candidate Baroness Sandip Verma. Labour cemented its hold on the city council by securing 53 of the 54 available seats. Sir Peter said he would focus on delivering ma

People who receive care in their home and the carers who deliver that care are set to benefit from a parking scheme being trialled by Cornwall Council. The Healthcare Permit Scheme was launched in April as part of Cornwall Council’s Positive Parking Framework. It is designed to help Care Quality Commission accredited carers spend as much time as possible delivering vital care services to the person they care for. “Carers have told us that being able to find a parking space close to

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

With Sir Greg Knight’s Parking Bill now having received Royal Assent, a new era is dawning for the UK parking industry. There is no doubt the forthcoming legislation will help to deliver consistency and fairness in parking services for the benefits of parking operators and motorists alike. But it does not represent a panacea.  The drive to improve standards in any industry or walk of life is not a one-off exercise. It is a mindset and it has to be a progressive process. It’s al

Technology firm Chipside has received a Queen’s Award for Enterprise: Innovation in recognition of its work in developing systems for the parking sector.The firm delivers digital and app-based parking payment and permit services. Founded in 2003, Chipside is a specialist software development company providing digital ticketing, permitting products and  parking services used by more than half of all local and national government authorities across the UK. With 50 employees and operat

Digital parking and permitting services company Chipside has appointed Leighton Ponting as its new business development manager. With more than three decades of experience in business sales and management, and 15 years involvement in the parking industry, Ponting will drive Chipside’s expansion into new markets. Ponting has previously worked in sales and management for IT and manufacturing companies across the UK, entering the parking sector in 2005. In the parking sector he has worked fo

Alpha Parking has launched a personalised training approach for civil enforcement officers and back office staff. The ‘shadowing and mentoring’ training approach involves trainers from Alpha Parking observing and advising parking personnel while they carry out real world tasks. “Shadowing and mentoring differs from other training because it offers a one-to-one service to provide staff with advice and support,” said Alpha Parking director Penny Winder. “The approach

Source London has installed its 1,000th electric vehicle (EV) charging point in the capital. Source London, which is operated by the Bolloré Group, works with London boroughs and Transport for London to provide EV infrastructure that caters to all types of EV users including taxis, car sharing services, private vehicles, delivery companies and corporate fleets. Christophe Arnaud, managing director of Source London, said: “We are delighted to have reached our 1,000th chargepoint, w

Somerset County Council has launched the PayByPhone service. This means drivers can use the cashless services across districts including Sedgemoor, Mendip and Somerset West and Taunton. Steve Deakin, Somerset’s parking services manager, said: “All drivers in Somerset now have the option to go fully cashless and to enjoy the advantages of the services PayByPhone offers. They don’t have to carry cash or cards anymore or worry about running back to top-up the parking before their

Cambridgeshire has launched a multi-vendor parking service whereby three cashless solutions will be offered at each location.  Cambridgeshire is the first local authority in the UK to introduce a multi-vendor service. Multi-vendor cashless parking is relatively common in Europe but in the UK a single-supplier model has predominated, with tender processes delivering outright contract winners. The new scheme means drivers will have a variety of options and can choose the phone parking servi

PayByPhone replaced Dash as the exclusive cashless parking provider for the London borough of Enfield on 1 May. Drivers can now use PayByPhone’s services to pay for parking at 2,000 on-street and off-street parking spaces in Enfield, including Cockfosters, Enfield Town, Palmers Green and Southgate. Cllr Guney Dogan, Enfield Council’s cabinet member for environment said: “PayByPhone will make parking easier and more convenient for our residents and visitors. Being able to exte

The introduction of JustPark cashless payment system in Dundee is the first phase of a series of smart city projects to be launched by The MILL – The Mobility Innovation Living Lab. The MILL is a Dundee City Council initiative that enables companies to trial new innovations, establishing the city as a real-life test and experimentation environment for smart mobility solutions. Other trials will be developed over the next year, including a scheme that encourages drivers to park in differen

Shropshire Council is offering residents and visitors cashless payment as an option at parking terminals in 10 towns. The council has been replacing its coin-only pay & display machines coming to the end of their working lives The council has installed 115 Flowbird StradaPAL terminals as part of a drive to enhance operational effectiveness while improving the customer experience. The terminals offer contactless, chip & PIN and coin payment options along with a capability to print vouch

Plans for the redevelopment of Taunton station have moved a step further as Great Western Railway (GWR) and construction company John Sisk & Son finalised contracts for the multi-million pound regeneration scheme. GWR is working with Somerset West and Taunton Council and the Heart of South West Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) to deliver the scheme. Improvements include a new multi-storey car park, ticket office and entrance as well as additional bike spaces and improved bus and taxi int

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 latest trends and technologies were showcased and debated at Parkex 2019, which took place at Birmingham’s NEC between 2-4 April. The British Parking Association (BPA) used the three days to explore a wide range of topical issues and raise awareness of campaigns such as the Positive Parking Agenda, Halt the Hate and Baywatch. The BPA Parkex Hub hosted a wide range of topical themes, ranging from the importance of data in mobility, the role of parking in clean air zones, the potential

Transport for London (TfL) has announced that five business groups across London will be offered a share of £170,000 of funding for innovative projects that will reduce traffic, ease congestion and improve air quality. The schemes being jointly funded by TfL will include schemes to enable cycle freight, enable people to cycle to work and reduce freight vehicle movements on the roads. The funding allocations follow on from the mayor’s recent Freight and Servicing Action Plan and the

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

Mid Sussex County Council has successfully prosecuted 14 for Blue Badge parking fraud and another 100 people have been issued official warnings. In the latest case, county council enforcement observed a man using a badge that did not belong to him to park on single-yellow lines near his workplace. The man was found guilty by a jury of using a Blue Badge with intent to deceive. He now has a criminal record and has to pay fines and court costs totalling £7,500 – £1,500 in fines

Carmarthenshire County Council has raised hackles by proposing to introduce parking charges at several popular beauty spots. The council proposes to make an order under the Road Traffic Regulation Acts 1984 and 2004 that would amend the county’s off-street parking order of 2014, which describes the areas subject to enforcement by the authority under decriminalised parking powers. The public had until 22 March to lodge objections. The short-stay car park beside the long beach at Pembrey i

Mayor of Leicester Sir Peter Soulsby has set out his intention of launching a workplace parking levy (WPL) in the city. The Labour mayor said he will hold a consultation on whether to implement some form of WPL if he is re-elected to lead Leicester City Council for a third term in May’s local elections. Soulsby confirmed he was considering a model similar to Nottingham, which became the first, and so far only, UK city to introduce a levy in 2012. Soulsby told the Leicester Mercury newspa

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

A universal rapid charging hub that can accommodate eight electric vehicles at one time has been opened by Milton Keynes Council and BP Chargemaster. The hub, which is operating on the Polar public charging network, is located within a minute’s drive of the M1, just off junction 14 at Milton Keynes Coachway. Milton Keynes Council and contractor Ringway designed and built the hub as part of its Go Ultra Low City programme. Funding for the project came from the Office for Low Emission Vehi

Chipside took part in a Smart City Summit & Expo in Taiwan on 26-29 March. The parking and traffic management IT specialist’s chief executive, Paul Moorby OBE, joined the Department for International Trade (DIT) at the Smart City Summit & Expo in Taipei. There were 1,000 booths representing cities, technology advancers and service providers from around the globe. For the expo, the UK DIT has recruited a number of UK companies specialising the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial

Paul Moorby, chief executive of Chipside, was presented with an OBE at Windsor Castle on 22 March. Moorby was awarded an OBE for services in the New Year Honours list 2019 in recognition of his dedication to continued innovation in the UK parking industry and promoting British technology to governments across the world. A vocal advocate of UK innovation, Moorby has promoted Chipside and UK capabilities in Europe, the Americas and Asia. In February, Moorby attended the Bengal Global Business Sum

New multi-function touchscreen terminals have been installed at three park & ride sites in Durham. The Cale Web Terminal (CWT) Touch terminals from Flowbird have been acquired by the scheme operator NSL for use at the Belmont, Howlands Farm and Sniperley park & ride sites. The Touch terminals offer site users the ability to order and pay for multiple tickets in a single transaction. Previously, users requiring two or more tickets had to repeat the purchase process multiple times. The n

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.

A new car park has been opened at a steam railway’s station just in time for the start of its 2019 season. The Broadway Railway Station car park officially opened on 5 March in the presence of civic dignitaries and volunteers from the Wychavon area and the Gloucestershire Warwickshire Steam Railway (GWSR). The GWSR reopened Broadway station over Easter 2018 after almost 60 years of closure. Since then it has carried more than 144,000 passengers, an increase of over 42% compared with the p

PayByPhone has replaced RingGo as the exclusive cashless parking provider for the London Borough of Harrow. From 1 April drivers will be able to use PayByPhone’s services to pay for parking at 90 locations across the borough, covering a total of 3,506 on-street and off-street parking spaces. PayByPhone users can choose to receive text message reminders before a parking session expires. They also have the ability to extend their parking sessions remotely in accordance to the car park&rsquo

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

Local government minister Rishi Sunak has written to the British Parking Association giving his support for the Positive Parking Agenda initiative. The Positive Parking Agenda (PPA) is a national campaign designed to build public confidence in the parking sector. The campaign’s aim is to change perceptions, challenge misconceptions about the parking sector and local government’s role and make the parking experience a better one for all concerned. The PPA was devised in 2017 by a gr

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

Drug dealers in an east London borough are having their cars stopped and removed as part of Tower Hamlets Council’s work with police to clamp down on the sale and supply of drugs. Council officers used CCTV to identify drug dealing activity and alert the Metropolitan Police last month. Dealers that have outstanding car parking fines can return to find their car has been moved to the local car pound. The new approach saw three cars stopped and one removed in one week alone. The CCTV opera

Gwynedd Council is poised to expand its parking enforcement activities at cover car parks belonging to other organisations. The North Wales county, which includes most of Snowdonia National Park, attracts many tourists. Gwynedd’s dispersed rural population is largely dependent on cars to access towns and facilities. Gwynedd Council said it has many years’ experience of decriminalised parking enforcement and there is evidence the service has become increasingly efficient. In 2012, t

Leeds City Council’s proposed Stourton park & ride project has been given the go-ahead after changes were made to the design of its landscaping. The park & ride site will provide for 1,200 cars on land between Hunslet Cemetery and Junction 7 of the M621. The site will be served by electric buses running into the city centre via Hunslet Road, which will be modified to create a dedicated bus lane. The planning application was agreed in principle at a panel meeting in January, but c

Videalert will be demonstrating the latest electric mobile enforcement vehicles at Parkex and Traffex. The parking and traffic enforcement specialist will be showcasing a fully electric car and a fully electric scooter, both of which will shortly be going into service. The multi-purpose vehicles have the latest ONVIF-compliant digital HD cameras and a suite of traffic management and enforcement software applications. Videalert is also expanding the range of services provided at its recently ope

Barbour Logic develops intelligent correspondence technologies. Its Response Master system is used by local authority back offices to answer challenges from motorists who have received a penalty charge notice (PCN). Response Master’s interactive RM Self-Serve platform provides motorists with immediate online responses to their queries. Barbour Logic director Jason Barbour said: “Automated response solutions empower councils to respond to PCN challenges better, faster and smarter. S

TRACE Debt Recovery will be launching a new local authority penalty charge notice (PCN) debt recovery process at Parkex 2019. The new service will build on the company’s experience collecting unpaid parking charge notices issued on private land. TRACE Recovery director Louis Ellis said: “We promote sustainable parking enforcement from the management of parking charge notices through to the collection of unpaid parking charges. With over 30 years of experience in the UK parking indu

Three Welsh local authorities have adopted pay & display technology manufactured by International Parking Systems (IPS). Swansea City Council, Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council and Newport City Council have all chosen IPS technology to replace existing parking terminals.IPS won a competitive tender run by Swansea City Council for machines to be used in both on-street and off-street locations. The IPS MP1 machines for Neath Port Talbot will be installed on the coast and at country pa

Gloucester City Council has selected payment technology from International Parking Systems (IPS) for the upgrade of its parking machine portfolio. The installation in Gloucester replaces all off-street technology, providing the car park customers in the city with the option of making contactless cashless payments. The project will see the council upgrading existing Parkeon Stelio and Strada units using the IPS Revolution upgrade kits in addition to taking delivery of complete IPS MS1 parking t

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

Outdated policies and an unfair tax regime must be reformed to create an environment that will allow high streets and town centres to flourish in the future, suggests a report published by the House of Commons’ Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee. The MPs call on the government to initiate reform in key planning and taxation areas, including the options of an online sales tax and reforms to business rates, to allow high streets to adapt to changing demand, and compete with

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

Once a car park was simply somewhere to leave vehicles, but now digital solutions from apps to sensors are transforming the humble parking bay into a high-tech haven. Parking is changing at a rapid rate as technology becomes more sophisticated and cheaper to implement at scale. Already, coins are out and cards are in when it comes to car park payment machines. JLL research shows that in 2017, 44% of car parks took contactless payments, up from 10% in 2014. Yet even these machines may soon become

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

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

An app designed to help drivers get discounted parking won over entrepreneur Jenny Campbell in her final appearance on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den. Campbell, whose background is in the cash machine business, was the only Dragon to invest in ParkingPerx, an idea pitched by Chris Read of Newcastle-based ProxiSmart. Read was seeking £80,000 to kick-start his app, which is designed to encourage consumers to visit the high street by giving them parking discounts in exchange for purchase

The BMW Group and Daimler AG are pooling their mobility services to create a new global player providing sustainable urban mobility for customers. The two car companies are investing more than €1 billion (£850m) to develop and intermesh their offerings for car-sharing, ride-hailing, parking, charging and multimodal transport. The partnership will see the creation of five joint ventures: •    PARK NOW for parking •    CHARGE NOW for charging&bu

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

An online consultation platform that enables residents to suggest and vote on topics of discussion has been used by the London Borough of Newham to gauge opinions on future parking policy. During January and February Newham held a borough-wide conversation called Our Streets, Transport and Parking. The east London council asked local people to comment on matters relating to roads and the public realm via an interactive digital survey and events across the borough. The conversations took place

Parking is a theme that frequently generates column inches in both local and national newspapers. Press coverage of parking is invariably negative, often focussing on violent disputes over bays and the millions paid by drivers in penalties. But on 19 January it was a good parking story that dominated the front page of The Times, which had decided to lead on the growing number of local authorities looking at introducing workplace parking levies (WPLs). At least 10 councils in England and Scotlan

An extension to a multi-storey car park in Amersham has received the Park Mark award for safety and recognised for its high standards of design. The Buckinghamshire town had been experiencing parking stress for a number of years. A survey by Chiltern District Council showed that to accommodate the rising number of users and to continue to support the vitality of the town, an additional 339 to 520 spaces would be required. The council decided to extend the Amersham multi-storey car park, which i

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

A local authority in South Wales is trying to encourage shop workers to park further away from retail areas, to enable more customers to park near their shops.A report by Vale of Glamorgan Council explains: “Many town centre parking spaces are occupied by employees working in those centres which could be freed up for shoppers. The council is working with traders to seek to realise the opportunity to free up parking and encouraging High Street businesses to change their parking behaviour to

Complaints about problem parking are mounting in an area of South Wales where civil parking enforcement (CPE) is in the pipeline. As Parking Review reported last year, Gwent Police informed five local authorities of its withdrawal of traffic wardens. All five councils resolved to apply for CPE powers and to use the established penalty charge notice (PCN) processing system of nearby Rhondda Cynon Taf County Borough Council as a regional hub. However, the first CPE activity in the Gwent Police are

Any move to cap private parking charges could have a profound impact on the interests of landowners and the future viability of parking services in our towns and cities. As chief executive of the International Parking Community (IPC) accredited trade association, I am urging major retailers, landowners and estate managers to raise their concerns to ensure the eleventh hour suggestion by a number of MPs is not included within a new unified code of practice for the private parking industry. Such s

Increasingly, data underpins everything we do. There are many facets and layers to parking data. There are also many stakeholders who want to have access to and use that data; including search engines, aggregators, vehicle manufacturers, payment apps, private operators and local authorities. It is a pretty complex picture. But what do drivers want? Drivers just want to be able to park easily. That’s the challenge for all of us in the parking sector. All the different entities that hold and

PayByPhone has expanded its presence in the south-east of England, adding two local authorities in Hertfordshire to its roster of locations. PayByPhone is based in Hertfordshire and its service is now being offered by Broxbourne, East Herts, Hertsmere, St Albans and Welwyn Hatfield councils. East Hertfordshire District Council launched the cashless parking service across the district on 17 January. The service is available in 26 locations in towns such as Bishops Stortford and Hertford. PayByPh

A cashless payment system that uses parking bay occupancy data collected by sensors to help drivers locate and pay for their stay via a smartphone app has been launched in Harrogate. The Smart City Parking system has been devised by AppyParking and is being supposed by Visa Europe. AppyParking and Visa are working with North Yorkshire County Council, which is responsible for on-street parking, and Harrogate Borough Council manages off-street car parks. Visa Europe has provided around £700

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

Blackburn with Darwen Council has installed CCTV cameras to tackle dangerous parking at a key route into the town.Cameras from Videalert have been installed on the A678 at Copy Nook on the Furthergate Link Road, a route that has been widened under the Pennine Reach Scheme to improve the flow of traffic and buses between Hyndburn, Blackburn and Darwen. The cameras have been sited on a ‘red route’ which was introduced in September 2017 to enforce ‘no stopping or loading’ in

Paul Sharpe has become the managing director of civil enforcement agency Newlyn. Following an introductory period prior to Christmas, he joins the Newlyn team in the company’s 20th year of operation. Sharpe has worked within the enforcement industry since 1985, firstly with John Crilley and Son and latterly with Equita, where he held the position of sales and marketing director. Sharpe will be based at Newyln’s Northampton office. “I am delighted to join the team at Newlyn,&

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

PATROL (Parking and Traffic Regulations outside London) is pleased to once again partner with Landor LINKS and Parking Review magazine in the creation of the Traffic and Parking 2019 event, which takes place in Manchester on 22 January. The move to focus on both traffic and parking with this year's event reflects the increasing challenges facing local authorities and motorists in the traffic management landscape. PATROL was keen to be involved in the event to help guide and enrich the conferen

The British Parking Association has created a video that explains how its corporate governance structures and processes operate. A link to the video on YouTube has been emailed to all members. It explains the role of the BPA board, council of representatives, and service boards, and encourages members to stand in elections. “The BPA is a not for profit membership association, and our mission is simple - to achieve parking excellence for all,” said Andrew Pester, BPA chief executive.

Parking Review is the leading source of independent news for the on-street and off-street parking sectors. Every month it looks at the management, enforcement, design and business of parking. Essential readingThe magazine and its online coverage is an essential read for anyone working in the parking and highways management sectors, as well as for facilities managers and property owners running car parks serving airports, shopping centres, supermarkets, hospitals and mixed-use developments. 2019

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

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 1,640-space car park is to be built by Liverpool City Council to replace the King’s Dock multi-storey destroyed by fire on New Year’s Eve. The new car park will serve the Liverpool Echo Arena, which is currently coping with just surface parking and a coach waiting area.  The Monarch’s Quay car park will be built by Willmott Dixon to designs by architect Leach Rhodes Walker. The nine-storey car park has been budgeted at £26m. It is expected to be completed by

The International Parking Community (IPC) is seeking to run an adjudication service that decide appeals against penalty charge notices (PCNs) issued by local authorities. The IPC currently administers the Independent Appeals Service (IAS), which is an adjudication body for motorists seeking redress where a parking notice has been issued by a parking operator. The IPC’s chief executive Will Hurley signalled an interest in running appeals in the public sector sphere at his association&rsquo

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

The theft of Blue Badges used by disabled motorists in England has risen by 45% in the past 12 months and is up sixfold since 2013, the Local Government Association (LGA) reports. The number of people caught abusing the scheme has more than doubled, with 1,215 successful council prosecutions in 2018, up from 535 in 2014. More than two million disabled people use Blue Badges for parking in pay & display bays and for up to three hours on yellow lines. In London, badge holders are exempt from

Road traffic regulations are normally enforced by police, but declining officer numbers and the difficulty of catching offenders has resulted in little or no enforcement. Local authorities are calling for a more consistent approach to enforcing moving traffic regulations. While many are able to detect and deter unauthorised parking and driving in bus lanes, the picture on regulations covering box junctions and banned turns is inconsistent. Under the Traffic Management Act 2004 local authorities

Oren Peleg, the former global chief executive of Fitness First, has been appointed as executive chairman of JustPark. Peleg specialises in accelerating business growth and was credited with transforming the fortunes of the Fitness First Worldwide health club group. Over the last two decades he has also held senior strategic and operational roles at private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management LP, Terra Firma Capital Partners and McKinsey & Company.  Peleg, who has been supporting Ju

The UK’s intelligent transport sector appears to be split over whether taxpayers’ money should be spent on the development of driverless cars, the outcome of a debate at the ITS (UK) Summit in Bristol suggests. A panel of experts debated the motion: “This House believes that driverless vehicles are the biggest opportunity for a step change in mobility and therefore it is right that resources and investment are channelled towards them.”  At the end of the 48% agreed

Increased enforcement around schools has led to a significant increase in penalty charge notice (PCN) challenges for the London Borough of Hackney’s correspondence team. Hackney is one of the capital’s three most densely populated boroughs. It is a relatively young borough, with a quarter of the population under the age of 20 and a fifth of residents between 20 and 29 years of age. Air quality and road safety issues around many of the borough’s 78 schools have been a major cau

Cambridge City Council has selected JustPark as the cashless provider for its surface car parks. The JustPark service will also be extended into the council’s multi-storey car parks over the next few months through being integrated with Skidata barrier systems.  The JustPark team were in the council’s car parks during October launching the payment platform and assisting members of the public in accessing the payment app. Cambridge City Council said: “Cashless car parking

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

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

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

Legislation that will see a dramatic overhaul of how parking on private land is regulated and enforced took a step closer to becoming law when the Parking (Code of Practice) Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons on 13 November. It received its first reading in the House of Lords on 26 November and is expected to gain Royal Assent by Easter.  The Bill sets out a legislative framework for a single standard-setting body, single code of practice and a single independent appeals

Wirral Council has confirmed that NSL will continue to run the council’s parking enforcement regime for the next five years, with the option of extending for a further five years. NSL staff will continue to enforce parking regulations, monitor parking permits and support school crossing patrols. The council has also introduced phone parking for the first time, opting to use the JustPark service in 47 on-street locations and 32 car parks. The contract will run for four years with the optio

The International Parking Community used its annual conference to launch its ‘Raising the Bar’ manifesto. The document sets out the organisation’s ambition to push for better parking practices and an improved parking experience to address the negativity, distrust and cynicism felt by some of the motoring public. In his opening address at the conference, IPC chief executive Will Hurley told the 200 delegates at the Hilton Double Tree in Milton Keynes: “We’ve injected

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

Enforcement officers from the Royal Borough of Greenwich played a key role in an anti-car theft operation in which over 30 vehicles were seized. The officers led Operation Stop-It with colleagues from Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), the Environment Agency, Immigration Officers and colleagues from the Metropolitan Police. The officers seized 31 vehicles at New Lyndenburg Industrial Estate in Charlton, including a Range Rover valued at over £10,000, for driving with false numbe

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

Taxi drivers in Cambridge are being encouraged to consider switching electric vehicles (EVs) following the launch of rapid charging points.  This is the first phase of a £600,000 project by Cambridge City Council and Greater Cambridge Partnership to install more than 20 rapid chargers for taxis in Cambridge by 2020. Two rapid chargers have been installed at the Adam and Eve car park off East Road, and two at Arbury Court car park.  Two further charging points are being install

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

Dublin City Council and Belfast City Council are seeking smart, low-cost solutions to optimise freight and cargo deliveries in urban centres in order to reduce the number of goods vehicles and improve air quality and noise pollution.  Six companies have been awarded Phase One innovation contracts to develop their solutions. One is a real-time booking system developed by Grid Smarter Cities that allows local authorities to designate stretches of kerbspace as temporary stopping areas to enab

Cotswold District Council has engaged Stripe Consulting, a specialist in car park structures, to help create a proposed multi-storey car park at the Waterloo surface parking site in Cirencester. Stripe is the lead designer on the project, providing architectural, structural and civil design services, as well as drainage, mechanical and electrical design services. Stripe will also devise the cladding brief for the car park’s façade, which will be used to select a cladding designer v

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

Like all relationships, those that work best are the ones where everybody wants to them to work. Most of us have experienced relationships, either personal or in business, that we haven’t really wanted to be involved in. Partnerships generally work best when there is a common goal or objective and all parties benefit from its success. From a local authority’s point of view, joining together with neighbouring authorities to carry out parking management and enforcement makes a lot of s

Greater Manchester has a new way of thinking about the role streets have in creating sustainable, healthy and resilient places. The Streets for All approach is a sub-strategy to our 2040 Strategy.  It begins with a focus on the needs of people and place, rather than prioritising the movement of vehicles alone. A key aim of Streets for All is to set out a more integrated approach to the design and management of Greater Manchester’s streets. This will enable us to address multiple agend

Bristol City Council has identified sites available across the city to test and deliver innovative affordable housing solutions over the next five years. Cllr Paul Smith, cabinet member for housing, made the announcement at the Bristol Housing Festival’s launch at City Hall. Smith also committed the council to investing in six rapid-build, modular homes from ZEDpods. The modular homes will to be put up on a site that would normally be seen as undeliverable in terms of conventional developm

New housing developments seem to be designed around the car, leading to streets dominated by parked cars, suggests a report by Transport for New Homes, a new organisation that aims to bring transport and planning together. The report reveals what Transport for New Homes feels are deep flaws in the planning system which leave new housing developments with inadequate walking, cycling and public transport connections to surrounding areas. With limited facilities locally, residents are for the most

Parking management undertaken by councils is an “essential public service” that benefits London’s economy while helping to deal with traffic, improve air quality and ensure better road safety, states a report commissioned by London Councils.  The London boroughs association commissioned consultant Integrated Transport Planning (ITP) to evaluate the cumulative impact of parking management measures such as bays, yellow lines and parking zones.  Benefits of Parking Man

Bristol City Council has suggested introducing a workplace parking levy or a congestion charge to fund significant investments in public transport infrastructure. The prospect of new levies on motorists is raised in the Bristol Transport Strategy, which sets out how the city’s council plans to tackle challenges affecting journeys such as traffic congestion, growth in housing and jobs, inequality and health problems caused by inactivity and air pollution. A Congestion Task Group has helped

‘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

Parents in Tower Hamlets can ask for temporary street closures Schools in east London will be able to pilot streets closures to cars for a few hours a day where parents are concerned about their children’s health. Tower Hamlets Council is also going to enable ‘Play Streets’, where some roads are closed off at weekends at a community’s request. This is part of #Breathe Clean, a campaign to reduce air pollution in Tower Hamlets, introduced in March 2018.  John Biggs,

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

Jade Neville has become parking services manager for OCS Group in Milton Keynes. Her new role involves the running and maintenance of parking enforcement provision in the Centre:MK shopping centre. The Milton Keynes role is her latest appointment within facilities management specialist OCS Group. She joined the group’s Legion Parking operation last year after a decade with APCOA Parking. She received the Front Line trophy at the British Parking Awards 2014 in recognition of her work as A

The PayByPhone mobile parking app is now the only cashless parking option on offer in the Essex town of Rochford. Rather than accept card payments at pay & display terminals, Rochford District Council has opted to provide drivers with a choice of either cash payment at terminals or cashless via phone in 11 town centre car parks.  Using the PayByPhone app means drivers do not have to remember to carry cash to pay to park, said Rochford District Council‘s portfolio holder for enter

Over the past few years technological advancements have revolutionised the way people park. Traditional pay & display machines have faced a technical onslaught from interactive voice response (IVR) phone systems, websites and apps. Behind this rapid evolution is a shift in customer behaviour that is driving parking operators, including local authorities, to focus on cashless payment systems.  The start of the evolution The first parking meters in Britain started operating in Mayfair,

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

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

Something strange happened on kerbsides and in car parks across the globe on 21 September. Spaces normally used by cars were filled up with chairs, rugs, potted plants and pets. The simultaneous transformation of parking bays into, well, people places in towns and cities around the globe on Friday 21 September was a sign that it was PARK(ing) Day. PARK(ing) Day was launched in 2005 in San Francisco by a design collective called Rebar, which took over a parking bay for a couple of hours to show

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was a prominent issue for many in the parking sector earlier this year. After the frenetic (and sometimes frantic!) preparations for the brave new world of GDPR, most parking operators appear to have taken the new data protection legislation in their stride. It was reassuring to see the enthusiastic engagement and high attendance of operators at the nationwide series of training courses run by the International Parking Community (IPC) to help maximis

Thurrock Council have added a further 18 machines to their portfolio of IPS MS1 parking terminals to replace its existing stock of machines. Following a really successful deployment of the machines last year the authority chose to replenish their remaining on-street and car park terminals with IPS hardware, all with the latest in contactless payments. Richard Boultbee, executive director at IPS (UK), said: “We are really grateful to Thurrock Council for believing in our product and we kno

Tandridge District Council in Surrey is introducing a ticketless parking system that combines automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology and account-based billing.  The council has installed a Flowbird ‘MiniPark with barriers’ system in a car park in the centre of Oxted. This ticketless system integrates vehicle sensors and license plate recognition cameras with barriers on entry and exit lanes.  The MiniPark system allows users to pay for parking in a variety o

The multi-storey car park at Preston Bus Station has been awarded a Park Mark under the Safer Parking Scheme. The car park at the Grade II-Listed building is owned by Lancashire County Council. As part of the recent multi-million pound redevelopment of the building by the county council, work has been completed on the car park levels including repairs to the concrete, improved lighting, new security cameras, and repairs and improvements to the access ramps. The car park was awarded a Park Mar

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

Mobile payments specialist Passport has appointed Adam Warnes to head up its UK operations. Warnes was previously head of parking at Westminster City Council. Passport is a US-based company whose product lines span parking payment, parking enforcement, and permit management. It is also active in public transport and road tolling. Its new office will be run by Adam Warnes, who is the newly apppinted vice president of UK operations. Warnes worked at Westminster for over five years, fulfilling a

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

A system for monitoring the occupancy of parking bays is to be developed for Watford in Hertfordshire. Watford Borough Council and the Digital Catapult teamed up to run the Low-Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) Innovation Competition.  There were two strands to the competition: one invited ideas on managing parking?(attracting a £20,000 prize); the other focussed increasing footfall (which has a £10,000 prize). For the parking brief, technology experts were challenged to develop

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

Solihull Council in the West Midlands has adopted a pair of sister software systems that have helped it simplify the way it deals with challenges to parking and bus lane fines. The use of correspondence and interactive public information platforms developed by Barbour Logic has enabled the council’s in-house parking team to manage an increase in challenges. The council’s contactor, NSL, fields 24 civil enforcement officers, who cover all on-street parking, as well as the 4,500 spaces

As the Parking (Code of Practice) Bill continues to proceed through the parliamentary process, the industry is moving inexorably towards a single code of practice, a move wholeheartedly endorsed by both the International Parking Community (IPC) and the British Parking Association (BPA).  Both Accredited Trade Associations are now in close discussion as steps are taken to create a unified code of practice and submissions are invited following the Bill being committed to Public Bill Committe

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

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

A digest of government policies on public and private parking has been published by the House of Commons Library, which provides research, analysis and information services for MPs and their staff.  Two briefing documents on parking have been produced for MPs, one on parking policy and another on the operation of the Blue Badge scheme (see page 49). Both briefings have been authored by Louise Butcher, senior researcher at the House of Commons Library. Parking Policy in England summarises:

Tower Hamlets Council is now issuing fines to drivers who leave their engine running when they are parked. The penalty is initially £20 but rises to £40 if it is not paid in 28 days. The new policy is part of the council’s #BreatheClean campaign, which aims to reduce air pollution across the borough. It will particularly focus on drivers who idle outside schools. The council said more than 50% of pollution that damages health comes from cars and other vehicles and 7.4% of all d

Twenty charities and organisations, along with almost 17,000 members of the public, have urged the government to outlaw dangerous pavement parking. In a letter, Guide Dogs and Living Streets called on the government to take urgent action exactly 1,000 days after ministers first promised to tackle the problem of unsafe pavement parking. The letter, signed by groups representing people with disabilities, older people and a wide-range of road users, challenges the government for repeatedly stalling

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council has reintroduced pay & display terminals in a car park following a two-year period in which customers were limited to just using the RingGo phone payment service. The council has installed IPS (UK) terminals at the Chappell Drive car park, meaning that drivers now have a choice on how to pay for parking. The new machines accept both coins and contactless cards. Richard Boultbee, executive director at IPS, said: “Providing a choice on how to pay

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 has appointed Mahesh Vadgama as its new financial director. With 30 years’ experience in finance, Vadgama was most recently interim group finance director with Minerva Cosmetics, a globally operating SME. He previously spent 12 years as finance and operations director with PSAV EMEA, an organiser of meetings, events and on-site event support services to the hospitality industry. Ryan Jackson, founder and director of Gemini Parking Solutions, said: “At w

The Alliance for Parking Data Standards (APDS) has announced the launch of the first release of its international standard and is calling on organisations and individuals involved in parking to share their views as part of an industry-wide consultation. Work in creating and developing these common data standards is being done by the APDS, which was formed by the British Parking Association (BPA), the European Parking Association (EPA) and the International Parking Institute (IPI). Additional f

The Swedish city of Stockholm has ordered 330 cashless and ticketless payment terminals from German supplier Hectronic.  Municipal company Stockholm Parking has ordered the Citea machines via Hectronic sales partner Modul System SE.  The solar-powered machines feature touchscreen controls that enable users to enter their number plate. Only the actual amount of parking time used is paid for via chip & PIN or contactless cards.  Foregoing cash means that the machines do not n

West Sussex County Council is allowing local businesses to issue free street parking vouchers in a bid to encourage more visitors to Chichester city centre. The council has given Chichester Business Improvement District (BID) 1,000 books of its on-street parking vouchers to be distributed from September though to the lead-up to Christmas. Businesses can give the vouchers to regular customers for use when picking up orders or to extend appointments.  Roger Elkins, county council cabinet me

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

UK clothing brand Superdry has invested in nine electric vehicle (EV) chargepoints for its Cheltenham headquarters after seeing a rise in the number of employees switching to plug-in cars. Currently, seven of the 700 staff based at the company’s Cheltenham headquarters drive plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) or EVs, up from just one driver in 2016.  Following the new chargepoint installations – which include seven 7kW and two 22kW Pod Point Solos – drivers will be able to leave th

Electric vehicle drivers visiting the North Lincolnshire Shopping Park in Scunthorpe can now charge while they shop, after managing agent MK2 Real Estate installed a Pod Point twin charger. To use the 7kW chargepoints, drivers need to plug in their EV and confirm their charge using the Pod Point Open Charge smartphone app. Marcello Della Croce, director at MK2 Real Estate, said: “North Lincolnshire is clearly getting on board with the electric vehicle revolution and demand for public char

Bristol City Council has launched new electric vehicle (EV) charging points and converted part of its vehicle fleet to electric. Using £2m of grant money provided by the Office of Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) through the Go Ultra Low West project, the council will be adding 120 new public chargepoints across the West of England. The council’s parking services team is taking delivery of six Nissan LEAF cars to use in and around central Bristol. Seven new electric Peugeot Partner van

Volkswagen is to launch an all-electric car-sharing offering in major cities in Europe and North America under its We Share sub-brand. The programme will be launched in the German capital Berlin, which will be served by 2,000 vehicles. The Berlin fleet will comprise 1,500 e-Golfs when the service begins operating in the second quarter of 2019, with an additional 500 e-up! following later. These vehicles will gradually be replaced by the first models from the new Volkswagen I.D. family from 2020

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

On-street parking charges based on a vehicle’s emissions levels have been introduced in the City of London. On 20 August charges will increase for polluting vehicles low and and dropped for zero emission capable vehicles.  The initiative is designed to improve air quality and reduce nitrogen oxides and particulates by encouraging motorists to consider using cleaner vehicles. The on-street parking tariff in the Square Mile was previously £1.20 for every 15 minutes. Drivers of e

On 29 July the Department for Transport (DfT) released its Blue Badge consultation: summary of responses and government response. This followed a public consultation about eligibility issues in relation to the Blue Badge (Disabled Parking) Scheme particularly with regards to non-visible disabilities. The consultation received a total of 6,349 responses from members of the public, local authorities, groups representing disabled people and other organisations including People’s Parking.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has set out its Inclusive Transport Strategy (ITS), which aims to improve accessibility for disabled people across the UK’s transport network. It is hoped that the measures set out in the strategy will make travel fully accessible and inclusive for disabled passengers by 2030. This strategy was produced following the Accessibility Action Plan (AAP) consultation, which received over 1,000 responses from disabled people and passenger groups. In parallel to

Wandsworth Council is rolling out almost 800 new cashless and contactless pay & display across the borough, starting this month. The London council has ordered around 590 new Flowbird StradaPAL cashless and around 200 StradaPAL coin and card machines, which will be installed in line with the council’s terminal estate renewal and refresh programme, which started in 2014.  The initiative includes the replacement of a number of older machines that are at the end of their useful work

The City of Paris has teamed up with French car-maker Groupe Renault to develop an electric mobility strategy. The partnership envisages a series of short, medium and long-term actions in favour of the development of connected and autonomous electric vehicles (EVs). Initially, Groupe Renault will roll out a commercial offer of electric mobility for Parisians, Ile-de-France residents and visitors, starting in September 2018. The projects include: electric bicycle offered via Marcel from Gro

People with hidden disabilities, including autism and mental health conditions will be given access to Blue Badges, the Department for Transport has confirmed. The Blue Badge scheme already means those with physical disabilities can park closer to their destination than other drivers, as they are less able to take public transport or walk longer distances. This will now be extended to those with less visible conditions early next year. The changes follow an 8-week consultation and are being bi

Canterbury City Council has launched a ‘park & pedal’ scheme at one of its park & ride sites. The council is offering free parking at its Wincheap site for people who then cycle into the city rather than take the bus. A new 28-space cycle compound, which can only be accessed via a key card and is available 24/7, has been built to provide secure storage for bikes. Maintenance equipment is also available. There are two signposted routes into the city: the Chartham to Canterbu

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”

Hammerson has put its £1.4bn plan to extend north London’s Brent Cross shopping centre on hold. Hammerson, which owns Brent Cross with Standard Life, feels the currently turbulent retail market means the expansion plans would be too risky. The project, which would have seen the mall almost double and size and receive a new multi-storey car park, had been due to start on site in the summer and complete in 2022. Hammerson chief executive David Atkins made the announcement when reveal

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

Barry Francis has been appointed as the London Borough of Redbridge’s operational director of civic pride, a role that encompasses parking. He joins Redbridge from parking contractor NSL, where he has been director of local government accounts for the past two years. Francis started his parking career as an attendant at NCP in 2003, before taking on administrative roles with the operator and Brighton & Hove City Council before moving into management capacities at the London Borough o

Hectronic has invested 24% in the software development and IT consulting company Hypermedia, which is based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.  Hypermedia developed the CityLine management system used by Hectronic. Paul Fratila, Hectronic’s parking product manager, said: “Hypermedia is responsible for our web and mobile based software solutions, such as for our intelligent parking management software CityLine, which is already used by over 10,000 parking ticket machines. This is a real

Parking reservation specialist ParkCloud is expanding its shareholder base with investment partner Mercia Fund Managers allowing the company to move forward with a new ownership structure. Mercia Fund Managers’ equity stake, which has been invested through funding from its £45.1m EV Growth II Fund, will enable co-founders Joe Kennedy and Mark Pointon to step down, and ParkCloud’s founder and current managing director Mark Pegler to focus on the continued growth of the company

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

Up to £40m in grant funding is being made available to UK businesses to develop and demonstrate new ways of charging electric vehicles.  The funding comes from the Office of Low Emission Vehicles and Innovate UK, which is part of UK Research and Innovation. UK government’s new Road to Zero strategy sets out a vision of nearly all cars and vans being zero emission by 2050. A major challenge will be to grow the UK’s charging infrastructure quickly enough to make electric v

Bidding has opened for the management of the government’s £400m Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund, which will support businesses to build electric vehicle chargepoints across the country and boost jobs in the industry. The government wants to make it easier for the public to own ultra-low emission cars, helping to improve air quality and protect the environment. The bidding process follows the launch of the Road to Zero Strategy, which sets out the government’s long ter

Source London is offering the capital’s residents the chance to share their preferred charge point locations via an online tool. The EV chargepoint network operator believes the Powermystreet engagement campaign will boost the development of London’s EV infrastructure across the city. Powermystreet is an online tool that will enable residents and businesses to demonstrate demand by mapping where they want EV chargepoints. The tool will now have the ability to select their preferred

Venice, famous for its canals and gondolas, is a popular tourist destination. Parking in the canal areas is necessarily scarce, and there is great pressure on what parking exists in the mainland Mestre area of the city. The city of Venice has thus opted for an app and sensor solution to improve on-street parking in two paid-parking zone. It has opted to install a sensor-based vehicle detection system in a total of 1,949 parking bays.  SENSIT enables motorists to find an available parking

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

Motorists across Scotland can now appeal parking and bus lane penalties online using a new service introduced by the Parking and Bus Lane Tribunal. The body, which deals with appeals rejected by councils, launched its online platform this month.  The platform being used is a customised version of the Fast Online Appeals Management (FOAM) system developed by the Traffic Penalty Tribunal for England and Wales outside London. Motorists receiving a penalty in areas where parking is decrimina

“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

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 Swedish city of Gothenburg is undergoing an intense development phase. In the coming 20 years, the city’s population will grow by almost a third. The construction period will entail major challenges, including congested roads and heavy queues in rush hour.  Public transit agency Västtrafik wants to tell people about the problems and show that public transport is part of the solution. Lars Backström, CEO of Västtrafik, says: “The traffic situation will be heav

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

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

PaParking technology provider JustPark completed the roll-out of its cashless payments service across Dorset in June. JustPark’s cashless payments service went live in North Dorset, West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland, and Dorset County on 18 June. The Borough of Poole, Swanage Town Council and Purbeck District Council car parks switched over to JustPark at the end of May.  The seven contracts cover payments at 189 car parks in total, including both on-street and off-street sites.

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

Keltic Clothing staged a fashion show celebrating the changing look of parking patrol officers at Parkex 2018. The fashion show saw members of the British Parking Association team don a range of uniforms ranging from those worn by police traffic wardens in the 1960s and ‘70s, local  authority parking attendants in the 1980s and ’90s, and more contemporary looks adopted by civil enforcement officers. “The fashion show had a lot of positive feedback,” says David Bar

IONITY, a Europe-wide electric vehicle (EV) charging network being established by a consortium of carmakers, has opened its first service station. The fast charging facility is now operational at Neuenkirch on the A2 motorway in Switzerland.  IONITY is a joint venture formed by BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford Motor Company and the Volkswagen Group with Audi and Porsche. By 2020, IONITY plans to operate a network of approximately 400 fast charging stations across 24 European countries. 

Oil company BP is buying Chargemaster, the UK’s largest electric vehicle (EV) charging network, for £130m. Founded in 2008, Chargemaster runs POLAR, the largest public charging network in the UK. The POLAR network now includes over 6,500 public charging points. The company has over 40,000 customers of its POLAR network, of which an increasing number choose to pay a monthly subscription, with the remainder on a pay-as-you-go basis.  Chargemaster is also a supplier of home charg

Renault is planning to launch what it claims will be the first on-demand shared mobility service to use autonomous vehicles on open roads in Europe. The service will be made available to the public in northern France during the final quarter of 2018.  The Rouen Normandy Autonomous Lab service will operate in Technopôle du Madrillet business park in Saint-Etienne du Rouvray through connections to the Technopôle tram stop.  The project’s goal is to provide mobility so

UK technology and automotive businesses have been invited to bid for £30m to help make self-parking cars a reality. Two new funding competitions will create two permanent self-driving test sites in the UK, the first of the kind in Europe.  The funding is part of the government’s modern Industrial Strategy aimed at developing the transport system of the future. The competitions are designed to help realise the government’s ambition to see fully self-driving vehicles on UK

Southampton City Council has installed 30 new electric vehicle (EV) charging points across five city centre multi-storey car parks. Southampton selected NewMotion’s charging points, which were installed by JoJu over a six-week period. JoJu was able to connect the charging points using the car parks’ existing electrical grids.  The EV charging scheme is part of a broader initiative to tackle air pollution in the city. Last year, Southampton was one of 40 UK cities named in the

Operator CitiPark, which has been a vocal advocate of providing facilities for electric vehicles, is supporting the second UK National Clean Air Day UK on 21 June.  National Clean Air Day (NCAD) sees local schools, hospitals, workplaces and communities across the UK hold events designed to improve public understanding of air pollution and build awareness of how it affects health. As part of its support for NCAD, CitiPark brought the New Nissan LEAF electric car to the main mall at the Mer

Glasgow City Council has secured £940,000 from the European Commission to realise its plan to transform a city car park into a solar power centre. The award from the EU Horizon 2020 fund will go towards building a canopy of solar panels above the council-owned car park on Duke Street. The panels will be primarily used to power the car park, which has ten electric vehicle charging points. Money from the award will also be used to install a 500kW battery and a controller that will allow for

Igor Karpovich has joined Passport, a US-based mobile payments provider working in the parking and transportation industry. Karpovich has been named chief corporate development officer. Karpovich most recently served as the senior vice president of Verifone in London. After earning his MBA from Harvard Business School, he led teams for companies such as GE Capital, where he was the vice president of strategy and business development. He was also Citigroup Global Wealth Management as the managin

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

Demand for housing is far outstripping supply, leading to a severe shortage of suitable accommodation for key workers, young professionals and first-time buyers in towns and cities across the UK. Could the solution be to build homes on existing city centre car parks and hard-standing areas? This is an idea advocated by architect Bill Dunster, who has come up with a housing concept called the ZEDpod.  Dunster wants to provide homes for younger key workers that are close to their workplace a

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

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

There appears to be overwhelming support for a footway parking ban in Scotland, a report published by Transport Scotland suggests. The Improving Parking in Scotland report considers the views of stakeholders and individuals who answered a series of questions on pavement parking and double parking. Transport Scotland conducted a public consultation on parking between March and August 2017. The consultation found that 83% of people support an all-out ban on footway parking and 70% have experience

Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council has gone phone-only in two of its car parks. The decision to simply use the RingGo service in the car parks is estimated to have already saved the Yorkshire council £40,000 and will mean it does not pay for constant machine maintenance. The move follows wave of vandalism which saw the council losing £300 per day in thefts, as well as covering the cost of machine replacement. Over a three-month period ten pay & display machines were routine

Parking technology provider JustPark has secured a group of seven local authority mobile payments contracts in Dorset. The cashless service contracts cover 189 car parks as well as on-street parking. The payments service is being delivered in two phases. The first batch went live in the Borough of Poole, Swanage Town Council and Purbeck District Council car parks on 29 May. North Dorset, West Dorset, Weymouth & Portland and Dorset County Council to follow during June.  JustPark won th

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

The London Assembly Environment Committee has called for a pan-London approach to electric charging points to be spearheaded by the capital’s mayor. There are now 12,000 electric vehicles in London, ten times as many as in 2012, the committee notes in a new report. In is report, Do Londoners Dream of Electric Cars?, the committee expressed a concern that the growth in the number of electric vehicles in London is outstripping the number of charge points, which could limit the number of pe

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

Plans to improve overnight lorry parking and to ease traffic in the event of cross-Channel disruption in Kent have been announced by the Department for Transport. The new plans for ‘Operation Stack’ are designed allow traffic to travel in both directions between junctions 8 and 9 of the M20 while lorries are being queued for the Port of Dover and Eurotunnel. That means drivers can access these junctions, rather than being diverted onto smaller local roads. The DfT said this will be

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

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

The Lexicon in Bracknell is one of the biggest town centre regenerations in the UK. In addition to 70 new shops and restaurants, the project also encompasses improvements to the Berkshire town’s existing High Street buildings and the restoration of local landmark, The Bull public house. The Lexicon, which is being delivered by Bracknell Regeneration Partnership, is a joint venture between Legal & General Capital and Schroder UK Real Estate Fund. The shopping centre is well served by ca

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,

Somerset is a quintessentially English county with rolling hills and a wealth of historical and cultural heritage as well as vibrant market towns and a number of popular seaside resorts along a 60-mile coastline. For local residents and around 26 million day and staying visitors every year, accessibility and effective parking management around the main retail areas and public venues and facilities in the county’s main towns is of great importance.However, the fact that this predominantly r

Smart Parking has been selected to supply its sensor and analysis technology to the Royal Borough of Greenwich’s Sharing Cities and Low Emission Neighbourhood initiatives. Greenwich is a culturally significant area in south-east London. It is a complex urban environment with a mixture of historic sites, urban housing, businesses and green spaces. It is the location of the Prime Meridian, Greenwich Observatory, Cutty Sark, National Maritime Museum and a university. Greenwich council is ke

The reliability of parking terminals across the Isle of Wight is set to improve after Island Roads decided to replace its ageing meter estate with new solar-powered technology. The machines are being supplied by Parkeon, which is now part of the new Flowbird Urban Intelligence business. Island Roads is responsible for the island’s highways network and associated services. It recently opted to install 40 energy-efficient Parkeon Strada Rapide parking terminals as part of a programme that w

Highland Council has modernised existing pay & display machines using a third party upgrade solution produced by International Parking Systems (UK). The Scottish local authority has adopted IPS (UK) equipment in 19 Metric Accent machines located in the towns of Fort William and Inverness. In addition, two of IPS’s own MS1 pay & display machines have been installed in Fort Augustus.  All the machines are installed with contactless payment technology. Richard Boultbee, execut

A new multi-storey car park is set to open in the centre of Ipswich. The 546-space Crown car park has been created by Ipswich Borough Council to replace a structure demolished in 2009. The new £5.5m multi-storey park replaces the old 1,000-space Crown car park, which had to be closed and demolished after it was found to be suffering from concrete corrosion.  The site then became a surface car park until work on the replacement structure began. The new Crown car park has been d

The planned renovation of a car park in Rhyl will make it more user-friendly and help attract tourists and visitors to the North Wales coastal resort.  The £2m car park refurbishment is part of a wider regeneration of the town, which includes a council-funded £15m waterpark, restaurant and two hotels.  The car park serves the town’s Family Entertainment Zones, which includes the Children’s Village. It is expected that the improved facility will help with footf

UK, US and European parking associations have launched a transatlantic data harmonisation project. The Alliance for Parking Data Standards has been created by the British Parking Association (BPA), European Parking Association (EPA), which represents 23 countries, and the International Parking Institute (IPI) in the United States to develop a uniform global standard that will allow organisations to share parking data across platforms worldwide. The alliance’s board of directors, chaired b

A project designed to demonstrate the benefits of zero emission fuel cell cars for large urban fleets will deploy 180 hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles as taxis, private-hire vehicles and police cars in London, Paris and Brussels.  ZEFER (Zero Emission Fleet vehicles for European Roll-out) will deploy fleets of 60 hydrogen-fuelled vehicles in each city. These vehicles will be used in the applications where vehicles drive long distances every day, need rapid refuelling, and have polluted

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

New park & ride spaces are being created as part of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s £32m programme of station car park extensions. The Station Car Park Extensions programme seeks to increase car parking capacity at selected stations. Two parking projects have already been completed at Fitzwilliam station and South Elmsall stations and more are in the pipeline. A surface level car park extension costing £700,000 at Fitzwilliam rail station has supplemented the exis

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

Dutch technology start-up ParkBee, which enables owners of private car parks to rent them to the public, has raised €5m (£4.4m) funding to grow its parking business in the UK. ParkBee uses smart technology to enable users to open up barriers and doors from RingGo and Parkmobile apps. It currently has 60-plus locations in the Netherlands and around 20 in the UK. ParkBee was founded in 2013 in the Netherlands by Jian Jiang and Tom Buchmann after they realised that while a lot of drive

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

Local authorities using systems and services provided by parking and smart cities IT specialist Chipside have relaunched its user group as a forum for discussing and delivering enhanced parking experiences. The Modern Transport and Parking Forum was unveiled at the inaugural Chipside Conference, which was held in London on 16 March. The forum’s membership is the 160 local authorities now using Chipside’s MiPermit, Case Manager and mobile computing systems as well as the Oppidatim sm

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

Rhondda Cynon Taf Council is spending £150,000 on upgrading parking at a local rugby club. The investment in Pontyclun Rugby Club comes after the South Wales local authority completed the purchase of the building from Pontyclun Community Council. The car park is located between the Windsor Arms Hotel and the railway line. The project will funded through #RCTinvest. The month-long project will see the entire car park resurfaced, footways improved and the installation of new street li

Councils throughout the country now have the power to almost double the cost of on-the-spot fines for littering.  The maximum fine for littering and graffiti increased from £80 to £150, from 1 April. For the first time, local authorities can penalise vehicle owners if it can be proved that litter was thrown from their vehicle. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that keeping the country’s streets clean cost local councils almost £700m i

Motorists in parts of Worcestershire can now use their phones to pay for parking in council-owned facilities. Wyre Forest District Council is working in partnership with parking technology company JustPark to offer motorists the new service, which launched on 21 March. Visitors to council car parks across the district can download the free JustPark app to pay on their smartphones, or pay by text or phone call at no extra cost. People using the app will get free reminders that their parking se

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

The London Borough of Newham has installed a CCTV-based Videalert system to provide unattended enforcement of bus lanes and moving traffic contraventions with a special focus on box junctions. The contract was awarded to OpenView Security Solutions, a provider of CCTV systems to local authorities, under the ELS framework agreement, which is available to all London boroughs. “An important factor in the decision-making process was to ensure that the chosen solution was open-standards based

A network of 100 rapid charge points for electric vehicles across London has been launched by the city’s mayor Sadiq Khan. The network includes 51 points for use by taxis. As of this year no more diesel taxis are being licensed and all taxis that are licensed for the first time need to be zero-emission capable. Over the past six months Transport for London (TfL) has worked with suppliers on the installation of 100 rapid charge points across the capital where a vehicle can be charged in 20

A majority of the public supports the idea of driverless vehicles using town and city streets, as long as they are safe and protected from computer hacking, a study conducted in London has found. The team behind the GATEway (Greenwich Automated Transport Environment) Project presented a summary of findings from its three-year research programme last month. The research was conducted by consultant TRL, the University of Greenwich, ideas-hub Commonplace and the Royal College of Art. The project s

German automobile giants BMW and Daimler will be pooling their urban mobility services, which means work on developing parking, car-sharing and electric vehicle charging will be shared. The companies have signed an agreement to merge their mobility services business units. The BMW Group and Daimler AG plan to combine and expand their existing on-demand mobility offering in areas such as parking, car-sharing, ride-hailing, electric vehicle charging and multi-modality. Each company will hold a 50

Software enabling the implementation of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) will be developed for Transport for London by Siemens, which will build on experience gained from working on the city’s Congestion Charge scheme. Over the next 12 months Siemens will carry out work enabling the software to be deployed for service preparation activities leading up to the ULEZ scheme going live on a 24/7/365 basis from April 2019. Paul Cowperthwaite, TfL’s general manager

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

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

The Mayor of London, Transport for London (TfL) and London Councils have announced £766,000 of new funding for three local boroughs to help accelerate the switch to zero emission vehicles to tackle London’s toxic air pollution. The 'Neighbourhoods of the Future' projects include a new school low emission zone in Camden to protect pupils from filthy air, electric charging points in streets in Hackney's markets, and a zero emission street and wider Low Emission Zone near Hammersmith t

A Lancashire business that supplies control systems for automatic doors has bought Hertfordshire access control manufacturer APT Security Systems from SWARCO. The deal will give North Valley Metal (NVM), which is based in Nelson, a presence in the south of England and provide a new market for its products. Founded in 1966, NVM makes electric control systems are used in industrial doors, garage doors and automated gate and entrance systems.  Managing director John Seymour took over in 200

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

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

Looking4.com, an airport parking price comparison company, has appointed audit, tax and consulting firm RSM to support its growth plans. The Leeds-based business recently secured a partnership agreement with Paris-Beauvais Airport and its first acquisition in the southern hemisphere with the purchase of Airport Parking Australia. It currently serves countries including the UK, France, Italy, Germany, South Africa, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan and New Zealand. RSM has now been appointed audit

BP plans to roll out mobile electric vehicle (EV) rapid charging systems at selected filling station sites in the UK and Europe during 2018. This follows BP Ventures investing $5m (£3.5m) in FreeWire Technologies, a US-based manufacturer. BP Ventures supports each of these areas by identifying emerging trends and businesses, making strategic investments and testing technologies and solutions for their scalability. Tufan Erginbilgic, chief executive of BP Downstream, which looks after the

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

The government has given its blessing to a Private Member’s Bill that seeks to place regulation of the private parking sector on a statutory footing. The Bill had already been endorsed both by organisations representing the parking sector and motorists. The Parking (Code of Practice) Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday 2 February. It was presented by Sir Greg Knight MP and supported by a cross-party group of MPs comprising Jacob Rees-Mogg, Daniel Zeichner Kevin

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

The London Borough of Lambeth has adopted Barbour Logic’s correspondence technologies to create letters replying to drivers who have contacted the authority about penalty charge notices (PCNs) that they have received.  Response Master uses decision-making software to create letters in Plain English. The system takes account of PCN regulations, the council’s specific policies and a range of questions and explanations raised by motorists.  Lambeth is the latest London borou

Parking system manufacturers Parkeon and Cale have finalised a merger. French company Parkeon and its Swedish rival Cale entered into exclusive negotiations in November last year and, with agreement reached, work is now underway to establish a new umbrella organisation. Danny Hassett, Parkeon’s regional parking director in the UK, will take over responsibility for the Cale business in the UK.  Hassett confirmed that both the Parkeon and Cale brands will continue as separate entities

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

People with hidden disabilities could soon have greater access to Blue Badges under new plans from transport minister Jesse Norman. The proposals would help remove barriers to travel for people with conditions such as dementia and autism, allowing them better access to work, shops and amenities. The Department for Transport says the changes are part of a drive for greater parity between the treatment of physical and mental health conditions. About 2.4m disabled people in England have a Bl

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

Nobody can avoid the absolute deluge of articles that are coming out now and media stories relating to autonomous vehicles (AVs). Typically, these are fairly polarised. Some can be characterised as predicting a real reduction in the demand for parking. There are images from various urban designers and architects showing romanticised 2050 visions of what the future might look like, of how our streetscape might start to evolve. But the debate about AVs starts to become a lot more nuanced when we&

The company that installs chargepoints under the Source London scheme says it has around £75m to invest in the capital. An agreement signed with Tower Hamlets at the end of 2017 means that BluepointLondon is now working with 20 local authorities in the capital. However, the company has so far spent only £25m of the £100m budget it has allocated to transform London’s EV infrastructure and that are currently close to 1,000 charge points stored in a warehouse in Ealing

The refurbishment of the Wolverhampton Civic Centre Car Park came second in the 2017 Structural Concrete Alliance Award for Repair and Refurbishment. The car park forms the basement of the city council’s offices. The 40-year-old reinforced concrete structure had been plagued with defects for years, including delaminating concrete decks, spalling and cracking in the soffits and damaged columns. Refurbishment contractor VolkerLaser developed an innovative repair and protection scheme for t

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

Nottingham City Council has unveiled the designs of the new Broadmarsh bus station and car park, which will provide 1,397 parking spaces, almost 250 more than in the previous car park. The city council said the development will significantly improve the approach to the city centre from Nottingham Station. The car park includes charging points on each floor for electric cars, with infrastructure in place to increase these as usage of electric cars increases. Solar panels will be installed on the

An ANPR-based traffic enforcement system has been introduced by Trading Standards in Oxfordshire to help protect one of the oldest river crossings on the River Thames at Newbridge. The Siemens solution identifies traffic that exceeds the weight limit on the A415 between Abingdon and Witney, and can also maintain an enforcement schedule and permitted vehicle lists. The schedule will allow for selected enforcement periods required for other types of restriction, with the permitted vehicle lists i

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

Leeds City Council is using a new CCTV vehicle to provide unattended enforcement of a range of offences including parking on city centre bus stops and school keep clears. The mobile enforcement vehicle has been supplied by Videalert after a two-year pilot scheme resulted in a reduction in offences of more than 74% and faster journey times for public transport users, said Mark Jefford, Leeds City Council parking manager. “The new mobile enforcement vehicle provides us with the flexibility

Motorists in Manchester can now use the PayByPhone app to pay for their parking session without the need to create an account. PayPyPhone was first rolled out in Manchester in 2011 and now gains an average of 5,000 first-time users in the city each month. PayByPhone is also currently available in 206 on-street locations and 154 car parks in Manchester. A new single screen registration process and a ‘favourite spot’ option now enable drivers can park and pay in less than 30 seconds

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

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

As electric cars grow in popularity demand for charging points is also increasing, but a survey of local authorities reveals that the provision of public charging infrastructure is uneven across the UK. The survey was conducted by property consultant JLL and the British Parking Association (BPA). Eighty councils replied, representing over a quarter of the UK’s local authorities. A third (33%) of councils that replied had no electric vehicle charge points within their car park portfolios.

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

Transport for London (TfL) is to increase the Congestion Charge penalty charge notice (PCN) from 2 January 2018. A rise in the cost of PCNs issued on the capital’s ‘red routes’ is also being planned. In the past five years there has been a 12% increase in the number of motorists issued with Congestion Charge PCNs. TfL said the rise from around 1.3m in 2011/12 to around 1.5 million in 2016/17 is a clear indicator that the effectiveness of the current PCN fine has reduced over t

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

Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London (PATROL) has 310 member local authorities from across England and Wales. The towns, cities and counties that PATROL represents are very diverse. By enabling local authorities to work in partnership, PATROL offers substantial economies of scale, which allow it to invest in things that maybe would be prohibitive for a single authority. One example of that is the shared investment in our digital appeal platform FOAM (Fast Online Appeal Management) which

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

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

Phone parking services at Cornwall Council car parks will be provided by JustPark. The council said that the switch to the new provider would save around £140,000, with the savings being reinvested into maintaining the county’s roads and car parks. JustPark took over the running of the service in 131 Cornwall Council pay & display car parks from Monday 4 December.  Current BemroseMobile Phone and Pay users will have until the end of December to register their details with

Chargemaster is to install 150 new electric vehicle charging points across Lancashire following a successful bid by Lancashire County Council to the Department for Transport’s Highway Maintenance Challenge Fund. Chargemaster will provide 18 of its Ultracharge rapid chargers and 66 dual-socket fast chargers, for use with a standard Type 2 public charging cable. The first charging points will be installed in early 2018 and will be operated on POLAR, which Chargemaster says is now the UK&rs

Chargemaster has been awarded a £2m contract by Nottingham City Council to install about 230 electric vehicle charging points across Nottinghamshire and in Derby over the next three years. As part of its Go Ultra Low City status, Nottingham City Council, together with Derby and Nottinghamshire councils, was awarded £6.1m in 2016 from the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) to help support the uptake of electric vehicles, reducing pollution and improving air quality.  The t

English councils generated a surplus of £819m from their parking operations in the last financial year, according to a study undertaken for the RAC Foundation. The figure for 2016-17 is 10% higher than the £744m made in the previous financial year. It is 40% higher than the £587m made in 2012-13. The RAC Foundation said the £819m total is £37m above what councils themselves had forecast for 2016-17. The findings come from an annual analysis for the RAC Foundation b

All five council-run car parks in Loughborough town centre have secured the Park Mark award under the Safer Parking Scheme. The accredited car parks are Beehive Lane, Granby Street, Browns Lane, Southfields Road and Southfields Road offices. Beehive Lane has held the accreditation for 13 years, while the others have secured it for the past nine years. This year Granby Street Car Park was also awarded a Disabled Parking Accreditation (DPA) from Disabled Motoring UK. This popular town centre car

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

A government plan to build a lorry park in Kent to ease traffic congestion caused by Operation Stack has been dropped. The Department for Transport has withdrawn its application to build a £250m lorry park near the M20 at Stanford, near Hythe. The lorry park was due to built at Junction 11 near Folkestone to alleviate disruption caused by Operation Stack and lorry drivers parking near public roads. The plan to create parking for 3,600 lorries had generated opposition from Stanford Paris

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 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

Cambridge City Council is planning to end a discounted parking trial in its car parks and instead trial a ‘peak time congestion’ fee. The proposals are outlined in a public consultation on parking charges for 2018-19. The council is planning to end a trial that saw prices on Mondays and Tuesdays at all multi-storey car parks reduced in line with 2012 prices and on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays where they were frozen at 2015 levels. This will see the return of a single

Donald Shoup, the renowned parking guru, has been recognised by one the USA’s leading planning academies. The California-based academic has been named Distinguished Educator by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. The award is conferred every two years to honour significant contributions to the field of planning. It recognises scholarly contributions, teaching excellence, public service and contributions that have made a significant difference to planning scholarship, educati

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

Royal Dutch Shell is to buy Dutch-based the NewMotion electric vehicle charging networks, marking the oil company’s first deal in electric mobility as demand for cleaner vehicles is expected to soar. Shell said NewMotion, which manages over 30,000 charging points for electric vehicles in Western Europe, will operate in parallel to Shell’s programme of rolling out fast charging points at its forecourts. “They’re complementary offers. One is fast charging on the go on the

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

Residents in Bristol converted street parking bays into public spaces that enabled them to socialise with neighbours. The Street Pockets project was run by sustainable transport charity Sustrans. The project seeks to encourage residents to take the lead in creating better community spaces in what are often congested residential streets where space is at a premium. The street pockets are also designed to encourage passing traffic that the roads are a place where people live and to slow down. S

Norwich City Council is increasing the cost of parking in the city centre, and ending free parking in the evenings and weekends. Charges for parking at other times in both on-street and off-street car parks will also go up. Current car park income for 2017-18 is projected to be £5.65m. Based on the current level of demand for parking, recommended increases would generate additional income of £45,000 for the current financial year and £95,000 extra over a full financial year.

Wrexham County Borough Council has become the first local authority to adopt parking technology company JustPark’s new mobile cashless payments service. JustPark has historically specialised in providing an online booking and payment service for off-street parking, meaning the company has worked with local authorities on pre-booked parking services, but this is its first full mobile payments partnership. JustPark founder and CEO Anthony Eskinazi announced his company’s intention to

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

Peer-to-peer electric vehicle (EV) charging service Chargie has re-launched under the new name Bookmycharge. The start-up decided to change its name after it became aware of a similarly named company called Chargy (www.char.gy), which supplies councils with EV chargepoints for installation onto lampposts. The Bookmycharge service’s core offer is giving EV drivers the ability to book a charge rather than risking heading to an out-of-service or occupied public charging points. Bookmych

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

Motorway services and large petrol retailers will be required to install chargepoints for electric cars, under the Automated and Electric Vehicles Bill, which has had its first reading in the House of Commons.  The Bill will increase the access and availability of chargepoints for electric cars, while also giving the government powers to make it compulsory for chargepoints to be installed across the country and enabling drivers of automated cars to be insured on UK roads.  “We

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

The need to recognise how quickly technology is evolving, and the way this is changing driver behaviour, emerged as a key theme at 18th European Parking Association (EPA) Congress. The benefits of harmonising standards and protocols across borders was also a recurring motif of the biennial event, which took place in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam from 20-22 September.  The three-day event saw a number of initiatives developed and showcased in the main conference and at a number of break-

Locals on the Isle of Skye are calling for urgent action to tackle traffic and parking problems caused by a surge in tourism. Islanders have pointed out that the isle’s narrow single-track roads are crammed and choked with camper vans, tour buses and cars, with litter strewn around stopping places and visitors relieving themselves in the open. Skye is the largest island on the Inner Hebrides and has seen a marked increase in visitors driving vehicles since a road bridge was opened in 1995

Parking app developer AppyParking has launched an Innovation Competition Fund to enable one UK local authority to become a global showcase for frictionless parking payments and intelligent mobility.  The innovation fund winner will receive up to 12,000 surface mounted parking sensors equipped with Bluetooth payment technology. All hardware, installation and project costs will be covered, says Dan Hubert, founder and chief executive of AppyParking. “This solution will allow visitors,

Several UK cities are looking to initiate smart projects and developments to improve the efficiency of local services, enhance sustainability and develop their competitiveness. Smart city initiatives improve the ‘livability’ of a city, helping to attract business and talent to support economic and business growth. A number of cities are now approaching smart transformation through a series of smaller smart projects that help to generate savings and effectively pay for the initial inv

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

The concept of a loading bay that only operates for the time it is required is set to become a reality. The virtual loading bay concept was developed by Grid Smarter Cities, a British company that is applying innovative web-based solutions to manage poor air quality hotspots across cities, incentivise the use of cleaner delivery vehicles and improve traffic flow in cities. Grid has created the Kerb Virtual Parking Bay Solution (Kerb), a virtual loading bay technology designed by Grid to allow d

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

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

The City of London is planning to create taxi ranks reserved for electric vehicles. The Corporation is keen to encourage the use of electric taxis as cabs are regarded as being the primary source of NO2 pollution from road-based transport in the City. The Corporation of the City of London has offered electric vehicle (EV) charging points in its five car parks for 15 years, but the taxi rank points will be the first EV charging points to be provided on-street in the Square Mile. The ranks, to b

Police are looking into bogus notices warning people not to park on the streets of a Nottingham suburb. The fake letters, which have been attached to railings and fences, warn drivers that they could be fined for leaving their car on Marham Close in the Sneinton area. The letters claim to have been issued by Nottingham City Council’s traffic department. The notices warn drivers they could be fined £120 or have their vehicles removed by “a toe truck” [sic]. The writer

Roads around three primary schools in Croydon are being temporarily closed roads at the start and end of the day to see if this encourages parents to use cars less. The roads by Heavers Farm and St Chad’s in Selhurst and Woodcote in Coulsdon are now restricted on the morning and afternoon school runs. The schools signed up to the six-month Croydon Council scheme because of their concerns about parking and pedestrian safety. The council said if the trial proves successful, the scheme wi

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

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 Rose Lane Car Park in Norwich has been nominated for a design award in the Civic Category by the Norwich Society. The 595-space steel-framed structure was built for Norwich City Council in 2016 by Huber Car Park Systems International in collaboration with Potter and Holmes Architects  The Rose Lane car park acts as the anchor for the redevelopment of the city’s Mountergate area. It is a 24-hour facility which, during the day, offers public parking, toilet and baby-changing facili

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

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

Reigate & Banstead Borough Council, in Surrey, says that it is both making savings and increasing parking revenue by encouraging use of a cashless phone service instead of pay & display terminals. Last year the council started upgrading or replacing pay stations it its public car parks so they can accept the new 12-sided £1 coin. However, while each car park still has payment machines, the council decided to reduce the overal population of units. It decided not to replace 16 pay

Local authorities could be enabled to charge utility companies by the hour during roadworks, under proposals being consulted on by government. Transport secretary Chris Grayling has suggested hourly lane rentals could halve delays to motorists caused by utility companies digging up busy roads. The proposals would allow local authorities to charge utility companies by the hour to carry out works on selected routes, encouraging the companies to avoid busy roads and peak times and incentivising t

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

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

Gatwick Airport, OVO Energy, Oxford City Council, Santander UK and Swansea University are among the latest organisations to become ‘Go Ultra Low Companies’, signing-up to a clean, green motoring future by embracing electric vehicles (EVs). More than 100 other organisations across the country that have already signed up to the UK government-backed initiative, such as Britvic, London Fire Brigade and Microsoft UK. Each has pledged that EVs will make up at least 5% of their vehicle f

A north London takeaway that was caught repeatedly dumping its commercial waste in a residential recycling centre has been fined £10,000 plus costs. Papa Winny’s Caribbean takeaway in Holloway Road faces a total bill of £11,015, including costs, after magistrates handed down five fines of £2,000 for fly-tipping, the largest-ever fine for the offence in the north London borough. Cllr Claudia Webbe, executive member for environment and transport, said: “This prosecu

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

Ford has launched a car and van scrappage scheme that enables UK motorists to make savings of up to £7,000 on some new models. Unlike scrappage schemes launched by BMW and Mercedes, which are only for diesels, the Ford scheme will accept petrol cars. Under Ford's scheme old cars from any manufacturer can be exchanged for a new car until the end of December. Andy Barratt, chairman and managing director of Ford of

Islington Council has been fined £70,000 by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) after failing to keep almpost 90,000 people’s information secure on its parking ticket system website. The north London council’s Ticket Viewer system allows people to see a CCTV image or video of their alleged parking offence. However, the ICO said that design faults meant the personal data of up to 89,000 people was at risk of being accessed by others. The data included a small amou

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

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

The Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) has appointed Cenex to update and manage the official UK database of information about public chargepoints for electric vehicles (EVs). Established in 2011 to provide a freely available database of publicly-accessible chargepoints across the UK via a user-friendly web interface, the National Chargepoint Registry (NCR) currently holds data provided by chargepoint operators on their facilities’ location, compatibility and hours of operati

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

Many car park ticket machines are still rejecting new £1 coins, which became legal tender on 28 March and now outnumber the old round coin design, which ceases to be legal tender on 15 October. However, it has emerged that some local authorities which have not completed the process of upgrading their machines to accept the new coins are continuing to enforce parking as usual. Parking Review asked a number of local authorities about their £1 coin acceptance and enforcement policy. Mo

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

Two Suffolk district councils have brought forward a scheduled replacement of their parking terminal estates to ensure that local people are able to use the new £1 coin to pay for parking. Suffolk Coastal and Waveney district councils work in partnership and collaborated in the renewal of their parking terminals.  A total of 115 Parkeon Strada Rapide terminals have been installed in towns across the districts, including Lowestoft, Beccles, Bungay, Felixstowe, Framlington and Aldebur

Crime in England and Wales has seen its largest annual rise in a decade, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The total number of crimes reported to and recorded by the police rose by 10% between April 2016 and March 2017 to almost five million, 458,021 more than the previous year.  Increases in rates of burglary and vehicle theft suggest that the long-term fall in these higher volume offences may be coming to an end.

Consumers will no longer to be charged extra for paying by debit or credit cards. From January next year businesses will not be allowed to add any surcharges for card payments. The government has unveiled new rules that will mean card-charging in Britain – where people can be charged 20% extra for purchases like a flight just for paying with a credit card – will come to an end in January. The move follows a directive from the European Union, which bans surcharges on Visa and Master

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

About 200 moped drivers and motorcyclists blocked traffic in Westminster on 18 July before marching on foot, calling for stronger penalties for those caught using acid as a weapon. The protest came in the wake of five acid attacks that took place in less than 90 minutes in east London on the night of 13 July. Not all the victims were delivery drivers, but all were riding mopeds at the time of the attacks. At least one of those attacked has suffered ‘life changing’ injuries. The pro

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

The AA is calling on English local authorities o invest parking revenues into maintaining their highways. A survey conducted by the motoring organisation found that 62% of English authorities have cut their budgets for the 2017/18 fiscal year by half-a-million pounds compared with 2016/17. The reduction is from £12.1m to £11.6m. AA president Edmund King said: "Far too often drivers are viewed by every level of government as wallets on wheels. We think it is time to redress the balan

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

By 2050 almost all cars in theBy 2050 almost all cars in the UK will be electric vehicles (EVs), but with over half of households not having access to off-street parking providing rapid and reliable charging will be a challenge. National Grid, which operates the UK’s electricity infrastructures, suggests a potential solution could be to establish a network of EV recharging stations.  The idea of a network of EV charging stations is raised in Forecourt Thoughts: Mass fast chargin

Stored energy from electric vehicles (EVs) can be used to power large buildings while leaving enough power for the vehicles to complete their daily journeys, suggests research undertaken by the Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) at the University of Warwick.  WMG’s Energy and Electrical Systems group and Jaguar Land Rover have demonstrated that vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology can be intelligently utilised to take enough energy from idle EV batteries to be pumped into the grid and pow

The UK government is to invest £20m exploring how batteries in electric vehicles (EVs) could feed the national power grid. The investment, announced by the Department for Transport, will support vehicle-to-grid (V2G) projects as part of the government’s ‘Industrial Strategy’. It is part of moves to create a smarter energy system and increase the numbers of EVs on UK roads. The projects supported will investigate technology that allows plug-in electric vehicles to not onl

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

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

Whether it’s on-street parking enforcement, congestion in off-street parking facilities, confusion about how to pay, or even just the frustration of trying to find a parking space, this all adds up in the mind of the consumer to a negative experience. Parking is important because parking is an issue that plays on the minds of people when deciding where to visit. A negative experience or perception can lead to more online shopping, more out-of-town retail park visits, and ultimately fewer t

Apprenticeships in the UK have undergone major change. In April the government introduced an Apprenticeship Levy that is designed to encourage more companies to invest in apprenticeship programmes. The new levy is part of a raft of changes that also see employers given more control over the content and delivery of apprenticeships. The new approach also enables employers to design apprenticeships that better reflect their activities and skills needs. This opens up opportunities for parking opera

Spelthorne Borough Council in Surrey has introduced electric vehicle (EV) charging points at two of its car parks in Staines-upon-Thames.  The charging points have been supplied by EV network operator POD Point.  Six individual 7kW charging bays have been installed at the Elmsleigh multi-storey car park along with a dual 3.6kW charger, which can charge two cars simultaneously, at the Tothill multi-storey.  Customers need to pay the appropriate parking fee, but the charging sess

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

The Hay Festival sees thousands of literary fans flock to the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. Many of the authors and visitors attending the event use the official car park, which is set up in a field adjacent to the festival marquees. The car park is managed by CarParkAt, specialists in event parking. The proceeds from the car park operation are donated to charity. This year, the CarParkAtHay operation raised over £10,243 for Macmillan Cancer Support. The CarParkAt team won a British Parking

Leeds’ new Temple Green Park & Ride has opened in the city’s Gateway45 Enterprise Zone. The 1,000-space P&R facility is located next to the A63, just off Junction 45 of the M1 motorway.  A 15-minute bus link to the city centre runs into the city centre every 10 to 15 minutes. Journeys between Temple Green and Boar Lane in the city centre are on low-emission buses run by First West Yorkshire. The buses, which are equipped with free Wi-Fi, run between 6am and 9pm weekdays

Milton Keynes’ residents can now buy visitor parking via the RingGo Resident Visitor Permit (RVP) solution developed by Cobalt Telephone Technologies.  To apply for an RVP, residents must visit the company website (www.myRingGo.co.uk/permits) and complete the form online, uploading proof of residency if required.  However, Milton Keynes is also validating address details using RingGo’s verification solution, rather than asking applicants to upload documents

Milton Keynes Council hopes its new electric vehicle (EV) showroom will enable visitors to discuss all elements of owning and running an electric vehicle, as well as test a range of cars on local roads. Funded by Milton Keynes’ Go Ultra Low City scheme, the Electric Vehicle Experience Centre (EVEC) will be located at centre:mk. EVEC will present EVs made by founding partners BMWi, Kia, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Renault and Volkswagen as well as showcase a range of current electric vehicles. Th

A parking permit system produced for the Austrian capital Vienna has won the innovation category of the 2017 FINAT Label Competition. The jury of the European association for the self-adhesive label industry (FINAT) presented German printing company Schreiner Group with the award at the European Label Forum in Berlin. The annual FINAT Award recognises the best pressure-sensitive labels and related products. Some 300 print products were entered in this year’s competition

Real estate services company JLL has launched a new team that will focus on providing advice on car parks, car dealerships, petrol filling stations and motorway service areas to investors, property owners, operators and funders.  The new JLL Automotive team sits within the company’s wider Alternatives team and will work alongside JLL’s Upstream Sustainability services team. The team is made up of people who have a mix of agency, consultancy, construction, data, research and ope

Around two-thirds of UK road users would support a scrappage scheme for older diesel cars, vans and lorries in an effort to get the worst polluting vehicles off our roads, according to a survey by road safety charity IAM RoadSmart. The survey asked respondents to rate the various options put forward in the government’s recent nitrogen dioxide consultation, but found that only 3% of respondents are confident that the proposed measures solve the problem quickly. More than 1,400 pe

The Freight Transport Association (FTA) says new proposals announced by the Mayor of London for road charging based on elements such as distance travelled and vehicle emissions could be a positive step for freight operators, provided they don’t simply add cost. The organisation, which represents half the UK’s road fleet, says it is interested in distance-based charging as an alternative to broad schemes such as congestion charging and low emission zones. However, the FTA says the pr

The world of parking was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, with Caroline Sheppard, chief adjudicator of the Traffic Penalty Tribunal awarded an OBE, and Anjna Patel, principal officer at Sandwell Council becoming an MBE. The Honours List recognises individuals who have excelled in various endeavours and have brought distinction to British life. This year marks the centenary of the modern day honours system. Honours lists are published twice a year at the Queen’s official

Michael Robinson, Portsmouth City Council’s parking operations manager, has passed away after a battle with cancer.  Robinson joined the city council as deputy parking manager in 2006 after almost two decades working in casino management at The Rank Group. In 2010 he was promoted to parking operations manager following the retirement of his mentor Ken Ellcome. He played a key role in introducing 20mph speed limits across the city centre, building the council’s capacity to tack

A Hackney resident has launched a campaign to turn surplus on-street parking spaces into car-free ‘people parking bays’. Brenda Puech contacted the London Borough of Hackney to request an annual parking permit as she wanted to install a bench, cycle stands and plants in the bay outside her home. Her request was turned down by the authority, which said the permit could only be used for parking a vehicle. Undeterred, Puech organised a ‘direct action’ event on 26 May, tran

Do you ever get that unpleasant blast from someone’s exhaust when you’re on the pavement or crossing the road? Air quality, and the effect of pollution on public health, seem to be dominating the headlines. The state of the environment literally affects every one of us and, of course, the generations who are coming behind us.  Vehicular traffic and the management of its flow and parking is a big factor in the level of noxious and poisonous emissions. Just a quick glance at the

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

An offer of €2.95bn (£2.57bn) made by a US investment company for Q-Park has been accepted by all the Dutch parking company’s shareholders. KKR Infrastructure has announced that 100% of the shareholders accepted its offer for all shares in the parking company, which operates car parks across ten North-West European countries: the Netherlands, Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, France, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. The €2.95bn offer price represents a multipl

Nottingham City Council’s pioneering scheme to transform the city by funding greener transport through a workplace parking levy and Birmingham Big Bikes scheme have shared the 2017 Ashden Award for Clean Air in Towns and Cities. The Ashden Awards are presented to pioneers in sustainable energy and are a globally recognised measure of excellence. Along with 12 other organisations, Nottingham City Council will receive its award on Thursday 15 June at a prestigious ceremony at the Royal

Paul McCartney turned his encounter with a traffic warden into the exuberant and jaunty love letter ‘Lovely Rita’, which appeared on The Beatles’ classic album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Rita the Meter Maid, one of The Beatles’ most memorable musical creations, was brought to life as part of Liverpool’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the release of Sgt Pepper. International performance artist Meow Meow staged a three-part pageant last

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

King Arthur Pendragon, a senior druid, lost his legal challenge against parking charges introduced by English Heritage at Stonehenge. Pendragon had argued that a parking fee of £15 for the 2016 Summer Solstice breached his human rights. At an initial court hearing in January, Pendragon said the claim was not about money or costs, but because the fee unfairly targeted his religion and forced him to “pay to pray”.  However, Salisbury County Court ruled that introducing ca

The next president of the British Parking Association (BPA) will be Peter Lowe of consultant RTA Associates. He will take over the office from Steve Brown at the BPA’s AGM in July. Lowe has been a member of the BPA for many years and is the chair of the BPA Wales Parking and Transport Group, a position he has held since 2010. As an independent parking consultant, he has worked with and advised more than 175 local authorities, equipment suppliers, software companies, enforcement agents, co

Barbour Logic, a developer of parking correspondence software, has appointed Faisal Basharat as customer service manager.  Basharat’s background is in the field of web-based communications and media technologies. He has held a variety of customer service roles with organisations such as Orange, The Independent, Chitter Chatter, Bookatable and CommuniGator.  Fiona Deans, managing director of Barbour Logic, said: “Faisal’s experience in highly competitive technology-l

Traffic enforcement and management solutions company Videalert has appointed Jamie Robertson to the new role of operations and projects manager. Robertson will be responsible for managing the day-to-day operations, including partner engagement and project management of Videalert installations across the UK.  Robertson has over 15 years’ project management experience. He joins Videalert from Civica Education where, as head of operations, he was responsible for managing support and ser

The orthodoxy of Post-War planning was that for towns and cities to thrive they needed to be accessible by car. This led to an urban scene dominated by flyovers, ring roads, car parks and kerbsides lined with parked vehicles. However, in the early 1970s the historic city of Oxford was among the first British cities to put the brakes on the car. Over the past 45 years Oxfordshire County Council and Oxford City Council have implemented a series of transport policies that seek to manage traffic an

Croydon Parking Services has adopted a new look for its civil enforcement officers (CEOs), who now patrol the south London borough in two-tone uniforms that feature the council’s corporate purple colour as a key element of their design. The CEOs’ uniforms are not just a fresh colour, they represent a transition to a workwear created by Keltic Clothing made from materials that are more comfortable to wear. The council currently employs a total of 30 CEOs: 10 mobile officers on motorb

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

The cost of parking at hospitals hit the headlines during the General Election when Labour announced it would scrap parking fees at NHS sites in England. Whether or not to charge fees is a decision for individual NHS trusts in England. In contrast, hospital parking fees were abolished in Scotland and Wales in 2008, although a number of hospitals still charge where they have contracts with private parking companies. Parking may be charged for in Northern Ireland. Speaking in Worcester on 7 May t

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

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

Michael Cosentino has joined parking IT specialist Zatpark to the new role of local authority business development manager. His main task is to bring the newly launched iZatPark on-street enforcement app to market. Cosentino was previously technical director at Civica, a company providing enforcement notice processing software used in civil parking enforcement. He worked for Civica for 24 year and was product director for civil enforcement systems when he left the company in late 2013.

Park Consult and The People & Places Partnership have come together to form People, Place & Parking Process. The People & Places Partnership are specialists in the field of town centre regeneration while Park Consult has experience in commercial car parking management. The new consultancy will aim to assist councils, business improvement district managers, car parking managers and economic regeneration officers in unlocking the potential of car parking facilities to better contribu

The travails of President Trump, the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, carnage in Syria and the politics of Brexit have all been dominating the headlines for months, so it was a surprise to see one of the world’s most influential business publications, The Economist, devoted a leader article (‘Aparkalypse now’) and a feature piece (‘Sacred spaces’) to parking’s impact on the health and vitality of cities. “Parking can seem like the most humdrum concern

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 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

A map of the moon, a miniature music box, a collection of coins and a parking ticket are among the artefacts in a time capsule that will be locked away for 300 years. The James D Robinson Time Capsule, which has been put together by a County Durham photographer, is to be stored at Durham County Record Office. Robinson, whose photos are includ

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

London Borough of Sutton has started a parking machine replacement programme, with over 140 new pay & display machines being installed both on-street and off-street. The south London council has ordered 143 new Metric Elite LS terminals via the ESPO framework.  Most of the on-street terminals will be solar powered as the old mains-powered Metric Accent terminals are phased out. However, 20 new mains powered machines are being installed in high usage areas. In off-street locations, the

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

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

A community on the Isle of Skye is planning to create a new car park to cope with a growing number of cars belonging to visitors heading to see a dramatic rock formation called the Old Man of Storr. Staffin Community Trust has made an application to purchase local authority-owned land near the Old Man of Storr to create a 100-space car park. Besides the car park, the trust plans to provide public toilets and plant trees. It follows several years of talks between the community and the council,

The North Essex Parking Partnership (NEPP) has filmed a recruitment video that encourages people to take up a career as a civil enforcement officer (CEO). NEPP is a coalition of local authorities undertaking parking enforcement from bass in Braintree, Colchester, Epping Forest, Harlow, Tendring and Uttlesford. By focusing on a young mother who works as a CEO and her interaction with the public, the partnership hopes the video will challenge misconceptions about what par

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

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

North Somerset Council has adopted Metric’s new video screen technology as it upgrades coastal parking machines. New Elite LS terminals sited along the seafront of the seaside town of Weston-Super-Mare are fitted with HD video screens, which display both video or static content to motorists using the machines.  The screens provide the council with an opportunity to sell advertising to local businesses, creating an additional revenue stream. Allan Taylor, parking services manager, s

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

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’s no getting away from it: surveillance cameras are everywhere in the UK. A survey by the British Security Industry Association (BSIA) carried out three years ago estimated up to 6 million CCTV cameras in the UK. It’s said that in an urban area on a busy day a person could have their image captured by around 300 cameras on 30 different systems. Under the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, the Home Secretary issued the surveillance camera code of practice with 12 guiding principl

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

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

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

Patrick Troy has resigned as chief executive of the British Parking Association (BPA), citing “personal reasons”. He joined the association in 2009 from Transport for London (TfL), where he had been of traffic enforcement from 2001. At TfL he was responsible for bus lane enforcement and moving traffic enforcement on the Red Route nework. Prior to working at TfL, Troy was head of parking services at the London Borough of Sutton, overseeing the introduction of decriminalised parking

A £10 charge will be levied on the most polluting vehicles entering central London from this autumn, mayor Sadiq Kahn has confirmed. The Emissions Surcharge has been dubbed a toxicity or “T-Charge” will come into effect on October 23, at the start of the autumn half-term. The T-Charge is part of a range of measures the mayor is introducing to tackle poor air quality in the capi

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

A 50% surcharge for parking diesel vehicles in central London is unlikely to lead to a significant improvement in air quality, says the RAC. The motoring organisation was reacting to the announcement by Westminster City Council that it is to begin a trial of charging diesel drivers 50% more to park.

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

A Dundee councillor is backing a proposal from residents in the city's West End for cut-price annual permits to be introduced at underused car parks to stop commuters parking on-street. A new annual permit of £365 would persuade workers to use car parks rather than parking in residential areas and walking or taking public transport into the city, says Labour councillor Richard McCready. Currently parking costs are considerably higher - for example, eight hours at the Bell Street car park

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

Ashford Borough Council in Kent is expanding its uniformed parking patrol and back office teams to enable it to step up enforcement activities aimed at improving road safety and tackling anti-social parking by lorries. The number of civil enforcement officers (CEOs) will increase by four to 12. The CEOs work directly for the coumcil. “Over the past decade, the roles and priorities of the officers have changed and increased. Therefore additional support will help the council deliver a mor

Westminster City Council is to start issuing penalty charge notices (PCNs) to drivers of cars, vans, coaches and taxis if they leave engines idling for more than a minute while parked. Over the past year the council has been running a campaign designed to raise awareness about the environmental and health dangers of vehicle idling, which contribute to high levels of air pollution in central London.  The council also says that engine idling creates a noisy environment, particularly affecti

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

Improvement works at Priory Street Car Park in Colchester have been completed ahead of schedule. The  Colchester Borough Council car park has undergone a complete makeover lasting 16 weeks. It has been given new surfacing, improved landscaping and architectural lighting to celebrate the Town Wall. Colchester invested around £500,000 in the Priory Street Car Park upgrade. In developing the plans the council has consulted residents, businesses and interested parties. Scheduled Monumen

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

Six schemes that will act as testbeds for future technology to tackle air pollution are being backed by the Mayor of London and Transport for London. The Mayor of London and Transport for London (TfL) have announced £1.4m funding for six ‘Neighbourhoods of the Future’ that will combine green technology and other initiatives to tackle London’s air quality emergency at a local level.

There is growing concern among motorists about both the cost and availability of parking around the UK, says the RAC. The motoring organisation is flagging up concerns about parking that were revealed in its 2016 annual report on motoring. Almost a fifth (18%) of the 1,714 motorists surveyed for the report said the cost of parking is one of their top-four concerns, a 50% increase, compared with one in eight (12%) who said this in 2015.  Concerns about the availability of parking have also

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

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

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

London’s boroughs marginally won the majority of appeals against penalty charge notices issued for parking heard by the capital’s independent adjudicators. London Tribunals’ Environment and Traffic Adjudicators determined 27,696 appeals against parking PCNs. According the tribunal's annual report for 2015-16, the adjudicators allowed 13,572 appeals, of which 5,803 were not contested by the enforcing authorities, but refused 14,124 appeals. Parking appeals made up the vast maj

Medway Council has started carrying out nighttime parking enforcement patrols on business parks in a bid to stop illegal lorry parking. This is to tackle problems of anti-social behaviour and dangerous parking. The Kent council has received reports of drivers parking on-street and in business parks and sleeping overnight in their cabs. On 1 November the hours of enforcement in Medway were extended to 7am - 1am seven days a week. Previously patrols ran from 7.30am – 10pm Monday to Friday,

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. 

The Northern Ireland Executive is seeking ways of making the renewal process for Blue Badge holders with life-long mobility issues simpler and more accessible. Department for Infrastructure minister Chris Hazzard said: “For many people with life-long mobility issues, the Blue Badge is a lifeline ‎enabling them to integrate in the community and go about many of the daily routines many of us take for granted. “Many of these badge holders have conditions which are unlikely to chang

Cardiff has ordered new on-street parking terminals that offer contactless payment, including Apple Pay. The Metric Elite LS has been supplied in the authority’s turquoise colour. User instructions are displayed in Welsh and English on the user information screen, adhering to the Welsh Language Commissioners’ guidelines. The machine’s high-definition video screens can display both static and video content, including advertising which raises additional revenue. Richard Boultbe

Transport for London (TfL) is enhancing its traffic enforcement technology and developing a new parking enforcement mobile application.  TfL has awarded SEA a contract to further develop and provide ongoing support of its Digital Traffic Enforcement System (DTES) and to develop and support a Parking Enforcement Solution (PES) app. The combined contracts are worth in excess of £6.5m and include ten years of support for both systems. SEA, a company in the Cohort group, originally deve

Jim Hill, a pioneer of modern car park design, has died at the age of 85. In 1967 he and John Cannon formed the consulting practice Hill Cannon & Partners. In the early 1970s Hill Cannon sought to tackle a common problem in multi-storey car parks: concrete columns sitting between parked cars, making it difficult to open doors and creating poor sight lines. Working with a local contractor, Hill Cannon developed one of the world’s first clear-span, modular structural frames for multi-st

All five car parks run by Charnwood Borough Council in Loughborough town centre have had their Park Marks renewed. Four sites – Granby Street, Browns Lane, Southfields Road and Southfields Road office – have received the Park Mark award for the eighth year in a row, while Beehive Lane car park has held the award for 12 years. The sites received the Park Mark for ensuring a safer environment with a high standard of cleanliness, signage, surveillance and lighting. Cllr David Hayes, t

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

Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet will discuss a report today (22 November) that would give the go ahead for work to begin on an outline business case for a workplace parking scheme. The cabinet is being asked to approve £100,000 to develop the business case for a Workplace Parking Levy (WPL) that would help fund major local transport improvements through charging for parking spaces designated by employers for employees. Revenue from a WPL scheme in Oxford could only be used to f

The iconic Preston Bus Station and Car Park is to be refurbished over the coming months. Makers Construction has been appointed as the specialist refurbishment contractor to work alongside principle contractor Conlon Construction within their framework with Lancashire County Council. The bus station, designed by Keith Ingram and Charles Wilson of Building Design Partnership (BDP), is regarded as a key piece of Brutalist architecture. The building, which was constructed between 1968 and 1969, is

A retail car park in Chelmsford underwent a complete refurbishment in just seven weeks this summer. The 391-space Meadows multi-storey offers short-stay shoppers’ parking in Chelmsford city centre. The Meadows is one of several multi-storey car parks owned and operated by Chelmsford City Council which, as parking asset owners, has taken a pro-active approach to the maintenance and upkeep of their parking structures. The council believes keeping parking assets in prime condition helps attra

Building work has begun on a new £10m multi-storey car park at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary (ARI).  Businessman Sir Ian Wood and his family pledged the new car park through their charitable body The Wood Foundation, which funded the 1,000-space patient and visitor car park. There are currently only 748 spaces at ARI, despite the hospital receiving around 5,000 visits a day. This has led to traffic problems at the hospital. The eight-level car park has been designed by JM Architects and

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

Since the 1980s, there has been a dispiriting narrative in transport in some UK cities. Bus deregulation in 1986, and the loosening of planning controls permitting new out-of-town shopping developments, was followed by significant growth in car ownership and use. Since then, there has been a tendency in many cities to equate development and progress to increased car use, roads and car-based development. Cuts in government spending have been a further disincentive to promoting or funding public t

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

Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, Western Isles Council, in creating a north-south electric vehicle (EV) charging network throughout the islands of the Outer Hebrides. Eleven charge points have been positioned on the Isles of Lewis and Harris, North Uist, South Uist and Barra, which make up the majority of the council’s remit. The chargepoints have been supplied by Evolt, which has already installed units the ferry ports throughout the Western Isles.

Southampton City Council has taken delivery of a new mobile camera enforcement vehicle.  The vehicle will patrol the city targeting vehicles that stop unlawfully on the ‘keep clears’ outside schools in response to concerns raised by parents and teachers about children being put at risk by irresponsible parking. It will also be used to enforce illegal parking at bus stops that causes unnecessary delays for other road users and potentially puts people at risk.

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

Most parking terminals in Wandsworth will be cashless after a recent upgrade of the London borough’s on-street pay & display stock. The south London council has just installed 177 Parkeon StradaPAL terminals as part of a renewal programme. They replace machines that were up to 17 years old. The new batch follows the installation of 140 StradaPAL machines during 2014.  All the new terminals selected by Wandsworth are solar-powered and are Chip & PIN and contactless card

Civil enforcement officers in Sevenoaks are now using electric bikes to patrol the Kent town’s streets. Sevenoaks District Council has bought two electric bicycles in order to help the CEOs cover greater distances and negotiate hills. The council said the e-bikes will be more efficient and help reduce its carbon footprint by reducing the need to use diesel-engined vans. Normal 0

Chichester District Council is introducing a range of cashless payment options in the historic city’s car parks. The council has introduced new machines that take card payments, including contactless cards. Customers should be able to start paying for parking by phone by the end of the year. The West Sussex local authority has also upgraded its web services, meaning that residents and businesses will be able to pay for their parking permits online. A total 14 new parking machines will be

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

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

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

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

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

Margaret Leslie, operations manager at Bournemouth Borough Council’s parking services team, passed away on 18 September. She had been living with cancer for a short time and passed away with her family back in her home town of Glasgow.  She started her long parking career as a police traffic warden, becoming a head traffic warden before transferring to Bournemouth Council in 2001 as operations manager. Elaine Smith, deputy parking services manager, said: “Margaret was an incre

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 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.

Blue Badge holders in Northern Ireland can now apply for the parking concession permits online through the NIDirect website. The site enables applicants to upload evidence of entitlements and photos. Payment can also be made online. The Department for Infrastructure hopes this will be a more efficient system and so help reduce a backlog of Blue Badge applications. Northern Ireland roads minister Chris Hazzard said: “In this modern age, online transactions are the norm and this new online