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

RingGo has launched a consumer advertising campaign that promotes the ease of parking cashlessly and the benefits of being able to top-up remotely. The consumer campaign comes five months after the creation of the BMW/Daimler worldwide NOW mobility services group. RingGo is the first parking solution within the NOW group to feature the new #appiness creative. Sister service, PARKNOW, which is offered in France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland, will feature the campaign over coming months.&nbs

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

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

ParkVia has been appointed the online parking provider for multi-national airline operator IAG (International Airlines Group) following a tender process, The first phase of the contract covers a dedicated micro website for British Airways. Operating from its home base at London Heathrow, British Airways flies 123,000 daily passengers to more than 200 destinations in 75 countries across the globe. British Airways' customers looking to pre-book airport parking, valet parking or airport hotels wit

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

East Cheshire NHS Trust has adopted a new parking system at Macclesfield District General Hospital. The new system, which has been provided by ParkingEye, enables pay-on-exit via kiosks or via a mobile payment service. ParkingEye has been managing public and staff parking at the hospital since January 2015. It operates an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system and deploys customer service attendants to ensure compliance with parking regulations and that payments are made. Payments fo

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

Car park operator CitiPark has launched a mobile application developed entirely in-house. The Mobile Pay app, which is available on iOS and Android, allows customers to pre-book and pay for their parking at any CitiPark site across the UK. Mobile Pay enables customers who have taken a short-term ticket on entering the car park to scan the ticket or enter their vehicle registration number, then pay their incurred fee through the app. Pete Dowling, head of car park systems and infrastructure at

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

Peterborough’s Queensgate shopping centre is upgrading its parking technology system. The mall is located in the centre of Peterborough and is home to more than 100 stores. It has parking for 2,300 cars provided in four on-site multi-storey car parks. APT Skidata systems have been used at the mall since 2008. In terms of new hardware, APT Skidata will be installing new Smart payment terminals from the Skiosk range, which have interactive touchscreen displays, multiple payment options, a

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

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

Park Assist has been awarded a contract to supply a parking guidance system for a Brookfield Properties development in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. All six acres of the former Nashville Convention Center site is being transformed into Fifth + Broadway, a mixed-use development in the heart of Nashville. The development will have a car park with 787 spaces. Brookfield Properties sees the parking guidance system and wayfinding digital signage as a means to ease congestion, increase flow and ease th

Park SFO, the largest off airport parking operator in the San Francisco area has awarded Park Assist a contract to supply a parking guidance system. The company has been providing travellers using SFO International Airport with parking for 30 years. It is building a new parking structure with over 1,500 bays. Park SFO chose to implement Park Assist’s M4 parking guidance system with features such as Park Finder, Mobile API and Park Alerts. The M4 system combines sensors and cameras to gu

Park Assist has been awarded a contract to supply a parking guidance system for a Mexican University. The parking system will serve the new La Estoa building at the University of Monterrey (Universidad de Monterrey), a Roman Catholic institution educating over 12,000 students. The La Estoa building will provide restaurants, banks, a concert hall, shops, executive training rooms and a car park for students and faculty. Park Assist’s M4 Parking Guidance System will help the university alle

San Antonio International Airport in Texas is to use a parking guidance system within its long-stay car park. The airport is used by more than 10 million travellers each year. Park Assist’s M4 Parking Guidance System will be installed into the Long Term Garage, which provides 5,400 parking spaces over five levels. San Antonio International Airport already uses the Park Assist M4 system installed in its Short Term Garage. The airport uses the parking guidance systems can guide visitors to

Barnet Council has started rolling out public electric vehicle (EV) chargers built into street lamp columns. The first 40 lamp column charging points for EVs have been installed by the north London council and a further 40 will be installed later in autumn. An additional 30 standalone electric vehicle charging points will be added to car parks in the borough throughout the year. The charging points have been supplied by CityEV, a UK-based company that both manufactures hardware and develops so

Motorists want cars of the future and parking to be more integrated and personalised, according to a survey by Parkopedia, an online parking services provider. The study, which questioned more than 3,000 people across the UK, Germany and the USA, offers insights for automotive and parking brands looking to develop future parking products. Parkopedia’s chief operating officer, Hans Puvogel, said: “This research was carried out to better understand drivers' motivations and the factor

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

Airport parking booking specialist ParkVia has appointed three recruits into its marketing team. With plans to strengthen its standing across Europe, ParkVia has appointed its first head of marketing to lead delivery of all digital marketing activities. Ben Fox will have a strategic focus on spearheading online conversion and customer experience. Fox has previously held senior roles at AO.com, JD Sports and Chinese manufacturing company Hisense. Fox said: “As pre-booked parking faces sti

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

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

Flowbird Urban Intelligence has launched terminal-based digital technology to enable local authorities to levy variable surcharges on vehicles that exceed set levels of CO2 and diesel pollutants. The new system can be used to generate a separate fee for higher polluting cars at the time of parking, using data linked to official government figures covering vehicle emissions. The digital system is loaded onto Flowbird’s solar-powered, multi-service terminals and provides authorities with a

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

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

Airport parking specialist ParkVia has strengthened its partnership with Portugal’s flag carrier, TAP Air Portugal, following two consecutive contract renewals since its original agreement began in 2016. The airline uses a ParkVia white label site, parking.flytap.com, to provide passengers with the ability to search, browse and book parking at 157 airports across 34 countries worldwide. Tiago Phillimore, head of digital and innovation at TAP Air Portugal, said: “Over the last three

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

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

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

APT Skidata has launched a new cashless payment kiosk with interactive touchscreen display that is redefining the customer and operator experience, and creating a new class of payment terminal. The Skiosk Smart Parking system provides users and operators with multiple payment options, supporting both barcode and RFID reading technologies, as well as banknotes and coins. The new terminal features 10.4-inch touchscreen display with HD colour. A 21.5-inch display is also available as an option.

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

Parking payment systems are being upgraded at Newcastle International Airport Limited (NIAL). The airport wanted an integrated payment system that can manage everything from pick-up and drop-off facilities, short-stay parking, long-stay holiday parking and a more personalised meet & greet service. The airport opted for a system developed by Orbility, which is the new name for the former Xerox ACS parking technology business. Orbility is currently replacing both parking equipment and associ

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

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

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

CP Plus and Ranger Services have merged to become GroupNexus, with the aim of providing technology that helps landowners better serve their customers and to build stronger customer connections. CP Plus was set up in 1991 to supply customer-focussed car park management and facilities management (FM) services. Ranger Services has developed parking technology solutions based on automated number plate recognition (ANPR) since its launch in 2003. Together, the companies operate 1,200 sites in the

Bath and North East Somerset Council is to use of its existing CCTV traffic and parking enforcement platform to enforce its clean air zone (CAZ).New cameras will be integrated with the council’s existing Videalert digital video platform, which is used to enforce a wide range of restrictions including bus lanes, bus gates and permit parking. Bath’s Class C CAZ will give exemptions to private cars while charging higher polluting buses, coaches, HGVs, vans, private hire vehicles and ta

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

Cashless parking provider RingGo has been harnessing the power of digital assistants to enhance the interaction between drivers and internet-connected cars. RingGo is now part of the recently launched BMW-Mercedes NOW Mobility Services Group, whose aim is to create an integrated ecosystem of parking, charging, car sharing, ride hailing and multimodal transport services. The joint venture has over 60 million customers worldwide benefiting from these services, with RingGo alone adding over 100,00

Imaginative systems and solutions on show at Parkex 2019 were flagged up on The Innovation Trail. The 10 companies selected for inclusion on the trail had a chance to pitch the benefits of their systems to a jury panel and visitors alike at a series of hustings held across the three-day event Innovation of the Year QUCITParkPredict ControlParkPredict Control is an all-in-one tool for effective on-street parking enforcement powered by artificial intelligence. It uses machine-learning algorithms

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

If someone had mentioned a career ‘in parking’ to university graduates a decade ago, the chances are they would instinctively envision mundane days spent driving around a borough, enforcing parking restrictions and handing out fines to frustrated drivers. Today the profile of our industry looks very different. In a 2017 article on the complexities of parking, The Guardian reported that Britain is home to more than 30 million cars, which on average spend 95% of their time parked. R

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

Plans to increase parking capacity in Newark, Nottinghamshire, by cutting down mature trees and building on green space have been delayed after local protests. Conservative led Newark and Sherwood District Council says more pay & display bays would “maintain a thriving and sustainable town centre” but campaign group Protect Newark’s Green Spaces has argued that the parking spaces are not needed. It says the plans are “just one of many threats to our green spaces whic

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

Housebuilder Berkeley Group has signed a framework agreement with APT Skidata to provide parking solutions at development sites throughout London, the South East and Midlands. The Berkeley Group is a FTSE 100 company that has built 19,000 homes in the last five years. Pete Brown, APT Skidata’s managing director, said: “APT Skidata already provides parking for some prestigious developments at London Dock, Dickens Yard, Imperial Wharf and St George’s Wharf, and this new framewo

French-based parking and mobility services company Indigo Group has launched a joint venture in China. The move comes as part of Indigo’s long-term 2025 strategic plan to expand its operations in Asia. The deal with Chinese operator Sunsea Parking was signed on 25 March at the Hotel de Marigny in Paris. Sunsea and Indigo will make an initial investment of nearly €30m which, together with debt and further capital from local investors, will enable the joint venture to invest in providi

Nortech International has developed a new range of inductive loop parking detectors. The 8 Series boxed detector range features a compact housing. The single and dual channel detectors is designed to meet market demand for detectors that facilitate ‘plug & play’ installation whilst still allowing full site configuration using the DU800 diagnostics device and mobile app.     The new housing is a result of a conscious move away from the traditional 11-pin relay bas

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

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

Ealing Council has taken over the provision of visitor parking sessions from RingGo. Residents and visitors will be able to choose to receive app or SMS text message reminders, alerting them that their parking session is due to expire. This service is provided free of charge. This means that parking in Ealing with the PayByPhone services costs the same as payng via traditional pay & display machines, but reminder texts are an added extra. PayByPhone says its system offers a convenient alter

ParkCloud has signed new contract with Aeroporti di Roma (ADR), with whom the Manchester-based booking specialist has been working since 2016. ADR runs Italy’s largest airport, Rome Fiumicino (FCO), and Rome Ciampino (CIA). During 2017-18, bookings for parking at both airports doubled.   ParkCloud has been promoting eight of ADR’s official car parks through its marketing channels, including its B2C site. ParkCloud also delivers ADR’s car parks enhanced coverage thro

Online parking reservation company ParkCloud has renewed its contract with Latvia’s Riga International. Situated in Latvia’s capital city, Riga Airport is the largest airport in the Baltic states, serving as a hub for national carrier airBaltic. Riga was used by seven million passengers in 2018.  Following consistent booking growth over the three-year contract term, ParkCloud will continue to market on-site parking at Riga Airport – known via its code RIX – through

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 Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has adopted the PayByPhone system at its Hillingdon and Mount Vernon hospital car parks. The trust wanted to offer an alternative to the existing pay & display machines. Steve Wedgwood, assistant director of facilities for the NHS trust, said: “Working with PayByPhone will enable us t introduce more flexibility into the way that our car park users, which include visitors and staff, can pay for their parking. “Rather than having to r

Hectronic has re-launched its HecTwin access control solution as a cloud-based service. The parking technology provider says this means that entry and exit terminals can communicate wirelessly, making the installation of extensive cabling unnecessary. Hectronic said the HecTwin@Cloud approach is comparable to the online check-in at airports. HecTwin@Cloud is being pitched at venues such as hotels, restaurants and owners of private parking. The site operator decides who is entitled to enter the

Real-time two-way communications over are vital for the exchange of data that enables the remote management of parking payment terminals. The data being exchanged between payment terminals and parking management offices can include the synchronisation of clocks, remote configuration of machines, management of tariffs and machine alarms. Examples of data required include warnings on coin box status or if machines are running low on tickets. Data on transactions can be made instantly accessible b

A shopping centre in North Wales has upgraded the payment and management systems used in its car park. The White Rose shopping centre in Rhyl, North Wales, has opted to use ABACUS software and equipment produced by Designa. Home to 30 stores, the White Rose shopping centre is located in the centre of the town, making it a short walk from Rhyl’s seafront, railway station and sea aquarium, and has direct access to car parking for 300 vehicles. The centre previously used a chip coin pay-on-f

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

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

Hectronic has developed a cloud-based system for parking space surveillance that provides real-time information about parking space occupancy and forecasts of the use of parking space. The HecSpot system uses either surveillance cameras or sensors to generate a database of occupied parking spaces by sending snapshots to a cloud-based server following a user designated picture interval. An algorithm is then used to process the data on the server, which is transmitted to the Hectronic management

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is asking motorists not to use cash to pay for parking after criminal gangs were discovered using vacuum cleaners to suck coins out of meters. Over the past 12 months, £120,000 literally been sucked out of machines across the borough, as organised gangs use hoovers to steal cash from pay & display terminals. Criminals have also been driving into the machines and using sledgehammers to smash them open, the council said. Kensington and Chelse

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

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

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

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

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

Launched in 2010, ZatPark is a software solution to parking enforcement and management. ZatPark provides end-to-end management of parking charge data from on-street issue to debt recovery and each step in-between, including appeals management. “Our pay-as-you-go model has opened the industry to new operators who previously couldn’t afford the infrastructure to become established,” said David Herbert, ZatPark chief executive. The cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) platfor

Parking equipment manufacturers WPS is to launch two new technologies at Parkex and Traffex. WPS will unveil a new validation platform called ValID, which has been developed to satisfy the needs of both retailers and local authorities. ValID enables a site operator to offer discounted parking in town centres, while also supporting the local community by encouraging spend to retailers, restaurants, cafes, hotels and other leisure providers. The system was developed in-house by WPS engineers and

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

Parkex 2019 will see InaParc celebrating its 10th anniversary. InaParc was founded in 2009 by Paul Betteridge and has grown to become a major provider of both new and reconditioned pay & display machine technology. “Despite our expansion in the last few years, developing lasting relationships with our customers has remained our primary focus,” said Betteridge. At Parkex 2019, InaParc will be displaying a range of Hectronic Citea pay & display machines, the CityLine back off

Scheidt & Bachmann (S&B) will use Parkex to showcase how it is developing parking payment systems that give operators the flexibility to offer traditional ticketed parking but also embrace ticketless operations. Alan Grix, Scheidt & Bachmann’s manager in the UK, said: “Ticketless parking based on camera technology is becoming an increasingly popular choice for controlling off street car parks. However, ticketed solutions are still very much the norm for local authorities

APT Skidata has launched Lite.UI, a modular solution that allows hotels and leisure venues to network barriers and columns to be networked via the web or through a single platform. As a visitor arrives on site, a barcoded ticket is dispensed on a roll from the column that can then be scanned or alternatively, in a ticketless environment the number plate details are captured. At reception the length of stay is confirmed and then on exit the ticket or license plate is read. Visitors are able to

Siemens Mobility has received Home Office Type-Approval for its SafeZone II average speed enforcement system, which incorporates the company’s market-leading Sicore II camera. Approval means that evidence from the system is now fully admissible in court for offences under the Road Traffic Offenders Act, 1988. Based on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology, SafeZone II provides speed enforcement between pairs of cameras, mounted either at the side of single or dual lane car

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

NCP has entered into a partnership with PayByPhone to implement mobile payment systems across the operator’s sites. NCP will also partner with Volkswagen Financial Services, PayByPhone’s parent, to incorporate parking technologies into its in-car platform. PayByPhone’s mobile technology will be made available across NCP’s car parking estate that serves an estimated 42 million customers annually. PayByPhone’s technology will also be incorporated into NCP’s own

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

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

The past year has seen a tremendous uptake in cashless parking. Councils all over Britain are reaping the benefits of scrapping the traditional parking meters in favour of mobile payment services. There is a significant cost reduction involved in not having to maintain the pay & display machines, it saves taxpayers’ money, reduces crime and is the more environmentally-friendly option. In many cases, the move to go cashless is driven by demand from an increasingly tech-savvy public. A

A coastguard helicopter crew bought a parking ticket when they landed in Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. The Inverness Search and Rescue crew were called out to assist a climber who sustained non-life threatening injuries while walking in Crowberry Ridge in the Glencoe area. The team landed in a car park, where they were met by an ambulance crew, who took the climber to hospital. However, the helicopter was grounded for a few hours when heavy fog closed in. HM Coastguard Highland post

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

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

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

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

Following the appointment of Alan Grix as its new managing director, Scheidt & Bachmann UK (S&B UK) has made three further changes to its senior team. Jason Barnes, previously S&B UK’s service director, now becomes operations director. Barnes has been involved in service delivery for over 30 years. Alan Grix said: “Under Jason’s guidance our expansion has been seamless and the wide range of service level agreement (SLA) based site cover. I believe the remote suppor

German parking payment system company Designa has made changes to its senior management team, with chief executive officer Dr Thomas Waibel being joined by two new appointments. Robert Monsberger and Gotthard Mayringer will now also take responsibility for the Kiel-based company as chief sales officer (CSO) and chief financial officer (CFO) respectively.New CSO Robert Monsberger has worked in a directorial positions at Siemens, Efkon, Asseco Solutions AG and Smart Connected Solutions.Monsberger

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

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

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

Rezcomm has upgraded its e-commerce platform to enhance how airports market and manage their parking inventory. Rezcomm Shop is an omni-channel platform that combines e-commerce, analytics and digital engagement. The firm says airports worldwide have provided its in-house IT team with insights into customer demographics, shopping trends and booking behaviours across over a quarter of a billion passengers. This information has been used to design a new solution that supports the end-to-end airpo

APT Skidata has launched Lite.UI, a modular solution that allows hotels and leisure venues to network barriers and columns to be networked via the web or through a single platform. As a visitor arrives on site, a barcoded ticket is dispensed on a roll from the column that can then be scanned or alternatively, in a ticketless environment the number plate details are captured. At reception the length of stay is confirmed and then on exit the ticket or number plate is read. Visitors are able to c

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

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

The charity that looks after Wimbledon Common in London is using a mobile parking payment system to tap into Gift Aid funding. The Wimbledon and Putney Commons (WPCC) is an area of parkland covering 1,440 acres that cost around £1.5m a year to maintain. WPCC has historically used a pay & display machine to collect fees at its Windmill Car Park. Simon Lee, WPCC chief executive, was keen to find a way to enable visitors to make contributions. A phone parking system was devised in consu

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

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

Paul Moorby, managing director of parking technology specialist Chipside, has received an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List. The award was made in recognition of his work promoting the UK’s technology sector abroad. Moorby has taken part in a series of high profile trade missions to Europe, Australia and the Far East in recent years. These events have seen him discuss how smart city solutions can help city authorities better leverage the opportunities presented by Big Data and Open

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

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

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

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

Mobile parking payments provider PayByPhone has appointed Jonny Combe as chief executive officer for the UK.  Combe was brought into the newly created position to grow the PayByPhone business in the UK, to build new partnerships and to collaborate with the team at its parent company, Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS), to create joint strategy with PayByPhone for the future of mobility.  Combe has a long track record in the automotive industry. He joins PayByPhone from the BMW Grou

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

Alan Grix has been named as the new managing director of Scheidt & Bachmann (UK). He has been the company’s sales director since 2000. Grix takes over from Martin Hughes, managing director of Scheidt & Bachmann (UK) for the past two decades, who announced that he is leaving the company to pursue new challenges. “I’m delighted to have helped establish and build the Scheidt & Bachmann brand in the UK to its current position,” said Hughes. “I would like to

Joost van der Willik has been appointed as the new managing director of Nedap Identification Systems, a supplier of traffic and parking management systems. “For many years, Nedap Identification Systems has delivered cutting edge technology in various markets and verticals. I’m excited to team up with a global team of knowledgeable professionals, eager to pursue new heights by further inspiring our partner network and the clients that benefit from our technology on a daily basis.&rdq

German parking and refuelling systems manufacturer Hectronic has appointed two further managing directors to support existing managing Stefan Forster.  Eckhard Fechtig and Frank Gampp have been promoted to the executive level of Hectronic.  Fechtig has been plant manager at the Hectronic in Bonndorf since 2002 and a member of the executive board with power of attorney. Since 2008 he has been a member of the board for Hectronic’s subsidiary in India. Gampp became Hectronic&rsqu

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

An Australian app that enables car park owners to rent or lease their bays has arrived in the UK. Kerb launched in October 2016 and is currently live across Australia and New Zealand. The service is now being rolled out internationally, starting with the UK and Ireland. By the end of the year its developers claim it will be available in 16 languages. Kerb was created by marketer Rob Brown and app developer Matt Salmon. “We’re really excited about the benefits that Kerb is going to

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

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

CitiPark is to install a DC rapid charger at its flagship Merrion Centre car park. The charger, classified as a 480-volt electric vehicle (EV) charging station, will be capable of providing a full charge to compatible electric cars in less than 30 minutes.  “The DC rapid charger is perfect for charging electric vehicles in high-traffic commercial locations, petrol stations and at locations along major transportation routes, such as motorways,” said Ben Ziff, CitiPark’s ma

North Manchester General Hospital has extended the life of its ageing Metric Accent machines using the IPS Revolution upgrade kits. The upgrade to the machines provides the hospital’s car park users with cashless payment in the form of contactless technology. This means visitors to the hospital no longer have to find the right change, removing what can sometimes be an annoyance to an already stressful situation. Barry Waterhouse, travel and access manager for the hospital, said: “W

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

Italian high-speed rail network Italo has renewed its contract with parking reservation specialist ParkCloud. Over the past 12 months Italo has seen growth in bookings across the 25 rail stations Italo covered by ParkCloud. Italo customers can browse and compare features online through the Italotreno Parking white label portal before reserving their parking alongside their travel. Francesco Fiore, chief of quality and industrial product development at Italo, said: “Italo’s service

MediaCityUK, standing on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal, is the home of the BBC and many other businesses pioneering new technologies and media production in the UK.  Neil Beverley, assistant property manager for MediaCityUK, said: “MediaCityUK  is a thriving destination where people live, work and play and we are very much  an evolving smart city. For example, we have recently become Vodafone’s test bed for 5G.” MediaCityUK has upgraded the car park

ParkCloud has appointed four new directors as the online parking reservation specialist enters a new phase of expansion.  Following the announcement of its new ownership structure earlier this year, managing director Mark Pegler has formed a newly appointed senior management team to focus development in strategic areas of the business. Dr Valentina Moise has been promoted from general manager to commercial director. She has been a key figure within the business for the past seven years, s

CitiPark has worked with John Lewis & Partners to renovate a multi-storey serving that serves a new John Lewis store in Cheltenham   The operator will also manage the car park, which provides 335 spaces over five floors.  CitiPark has installed automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology throughout the car park. There are 12 ‘click & collect’ bays that enable customers to stop and quickly pick up orders previously placed online. There are also pare

CitiPark is letting customers pay for parking with plastic bottles as part of a recycling initiative at its flagship Merrion Centre site in Leeds. To claim the money off parking, customers must personally hand all bottles to the CitiPark office attendant in the CitiPark customer service suite at the entrance to the Merrion Centre car park.  The bottles must be 500ml and over to qualify for the free parking, but CitiPark will take any size plastic bottle to recycle. Each 500ml bottle donate

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

A petition calling for an immediate end to car parking charges at all NHS hospitals was delivered to Number 10 Downing Street last month (10 September). The online petition, launched by Robert Halfon MP and Howard Cox, founder of motoring campaign group FairFuelUK, received over 26,000 signatures. The petition states: “Hospital car parking charges affect the vulnerable, visitors of ill relatives and hardworking NHS staff. The fees are a major cause of social injustice.  “In 2

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

Nigel Coltman has been appointed new chief executive of Smart Parking Technology in the UK. Coltman joins the Australian-based company from outsourcing contractor NSL.  Coltman will be responsible for implementing Smart Parking’s UK growth strategy. He will work with senior management across the global operation, as well as overseeing the development of existing and new business in both the UK services and technology divisions. Smart Parking’s latest annual report reveals the

Cycling duo raise £40k for air ambulance and fight against motor neurone disease Tim Daniels, sales and marketing director of Videalert, and his friend Rob Sanderson, have raised over £40,000 for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance (HIOWAA) and the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association.  On 26 August 2013, the HIOWAA Critical Care Team was called to a cycling accident involving Daniels in Owslebury, near Winchester. Daniels had been out on a bike ride with friends

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

Drivers who use PayByPhone can now extend their parking session from the Apple Watch. The new feature is supported by watchOS 4.0 and enables drivers to park without using their phone or having to make a trip to the meter. The Apple Watch app also includes the ‘Glances’ feature, which shows drivers the amount of time they have remaining in their parking session.  PayByPhone was one of 44 companies originally chosen to launch with the Apple Watch, which is now installed on over

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

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

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

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

Parking in the United States has always lagged many, many years behind Europe for many reasons. One is that Americans do not like a lot of change. That is all about to change because we are living in an era of disruption. What does disruption look like from the United States’ perspective? Disruption with regard to parking and mobility has come from the outside. Indeed, it is rare that an industry gets disrupted from the inside out.  Uber and Lyft have completely disrupted the taxi in

Videalert has launched a new generation of mobile automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) camera technology for use with mobile enforcement vehicles (MEVs). The high-definition (HD) camera will deliver enhanced capture rates and increase productivity in parking and traffic management applications.  Videalert said the 2 megapixel camera utilises Sony DSP technology for noise reduction and infra-red sensitivity to capture images of reflective number plates at distances of up to 40 metres.

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

Inverness Airport is now using  online parking booking services provided by Rezcomm. People travelling to the airport will now be able to pre-book their parking directly online before travelling, as well a host of other ancillary services including hotels, flights and holidays, rather than through third party aggregators. Inverness Airport is part of the Highlands and Islands Airports group. It provides commercial passenger flights to European and UK domestic destinations. Inverness served

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

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

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

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

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

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

PayByPhone has become east London football club Leyton Orient’s official social media sponsor for the 2018/19 season. PayByPhone will be featured on the National League club’s social media channels and, over the course of the season, will develop content relevant to the club’s supporters and followers.  PayByPhone will also share regular content about Leyton Orient Football Club, known as the O’s, through its Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts. Danny Macklin

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

Videalert sponsored a team taking part in a 700-mile bike ride from Caen to Cannes in France in aid of two UK charities: the Hampshire & IOW Air Ambulance and the Motor Neurone Disease Association. The aim is to raise £40,000 that will shared equally between both charities.  Nearly five years ago Tim Daniels, Videalert’s sales director, had a major cycling accident and owes his life to the Hampshire & IOW Air Ambulance. Since then he has dedicated a lot of time to rais

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

ANPR International’s Vehicle Damage Recording Systems (Vehicle DRS) reached an historic milestone this summer with the combined installations accounting for over two million vehicles imaged and recorded. The Vehicle DRS systems are used by airports and off-airport parking operators to automatically capture and store images of a customer’s vehicle before it is left with the operator. This provides evidence of the vehicle’s condition in the event of any dispute over alleged dama

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

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

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

Parking company Indigo has develped a bicycle hire service as part of moves to broaden its offer. The Indigo Weel station-free, self-service bike scheme has been launched initially in France. Users can hire a bike downloading the Indigo Weel mobile app from the App Store or from Google Play. Once users sign up they can unlock the bike using the app. At the end of a journey. the bikes can locked using the app and the user is notified the ride has come to an end.  The bikes are tracked, ena

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

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

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

The issue of parking within hospitals evokes strong emotions and seems to be constantly in the news. Finding a balance between meeting the cost of delivering a service with providing a customer experience that is sensitive to the environment is not an easy task. When faced with having to upgrade its ageing pay & display systems, Torbay Hospital decided not to go down the camera enforcement route and, instead, opted to implement a new parking regime that uses a mix of barrier and pay & di

Northampton Hospital is allowing members of the public using its car parks to skip the pay & display machines and purchase parking via their phones instead. “Patients and visitors started enquiring about alternative payment methods at the hospital and we felt that we could make better use of available technologies to improve their parking experience,” says Brian Willett, hotel services manager at Northampton General Hospital NHS Trust.  The hospital has seven car parks on c

A decade has passed since the Welsh Government decided that parking should be free at all NHS hospitals in Wales. Only now has the commitment been met in full, with the abolition of parking charges at the largest hospital, the University Hospital of Wales (UHW). The reason that UHW still charged for parking was because this was an aspect of the hospital’s contract with Indigo, which concluded on 4 June.  Parking on the site is now managed for the Cardiff and Vale University Health Bo

With 34,000 students and a staff of 8,000, the University of Leeds is one of the largest centres of higher education in the UK and the third largest employer in the city. Covering a square mile and just a ten minutes walk from the city centre, the university campus is located next to Leeds General Infirmary. All the university’s facilities are readily accessible from the university due to the central location of the campus, which is served by cycle routes and public transport services. On

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

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

Operator Total Car Parks is urging parking machine manufacturers to create pay & display terminals that are better able to deter criminal activity. Essy Eslamian, managing director of Total Car Parks, spoke out after a P&D machine in Ipswich was twice targeted by thieves in two months.  Eslamian wants manufacturers to revise the design of machines to make it harder for criminals to break-in and steal the cash boxes inside. “Every car park operator I know has stories about lo

More than half of the UK’s biggest airports have raised fees for drivers parking to pick up friends or family members this summer, analysis by the RAC has found. Thirteen airports have increased their pick-up parking prices. London Luton has raised its prices by more than any other airport this year.  It now costs an initial £8 to park for of up to 30 minutes at Luton, which is £1 more than in 2017 when the minimum permitted stay was longer at 40 minutes. The airport rec

It is 60 years since the first parking meters appeared on a British street when Westminster City Council installed a machine in Mayfair.  On 10 July 1958 Richard Nugent, the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Transport, inaugurated the new form of street furniture with a quote from Milton: “They also serve who stand and wait.” Westminster was the first local authority to make use of provisions in the Road Traffic Act 1956 that gave local authorities the powers to propo

Tony Segdwick, a pioneering figure in the parking technology sector, has passed away. Sedgwick was a founder of Langdale Systems, a company which developed the first generation of parking enforcement and permit management systems for use by local authorities. He was also an advocate of cashless payment approaches, providing services such as scratch-off parking cards and pre-paid electronic in-car meters. Langdale Systems was acquired by NCP, which then sold the business to IT company Imperial

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

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

German technology company Hectronic has made changes to the management of its parking business unit. Hectronic, which is based in Bonndorf in the Black Forest, specialises in producing payment and management systems for the parking and refuelling sectors. The restructuring is the result of a strategic orientation designed to help the company better meet future requirements.  Stefan Forster, managing director of Hectronic, said: “We now see ourselves as even better positioned to mee

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

Online parking reservation platform ParkCloud has extended its presence across the Greek market by adding Thessaloniki Airport and Kavala Airport to its network.  Thessaloniki and Kavala Airport join Heraklion Airport as part of ParkCloud’s official Greek airport partner network.  Mark Pegler, managing director at ParkCloud, said: “Southern Europe has always been a strong market for us, with demand for reserved parking in countries such as Italy and Spain increasing year-

Online parking reservation company ParkCloud has agreed a new three-year deal with aviation brand partner Primera Air as low-cost airline launches several long-haul routes.   ParkCloud will support the Nordic airline’s expansion with a new white label channel, affiliated exclusively via primeraair.parkcloud.com/en-GB.    The enhanced reservation platform will allow users to search, browse and book parking alongside their flights at a number of destinations worldwide &ndash

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

The University College Ghent in Belgium is now monitoring the parking occupancy in real-time to prevent abuse of the short-stay parking bays. Parking Project Solutions (PPS) installed Nedap parking sensors in each short-stay bay on the Schoonmeersen campus. The real-time data that is collected enables the university to monitor the usage online and, if necessary, take enforcement action. “This solution offers the manager of the car park a useful tool to maintain compliance with the parkin

Access control specialist Nortech has developed a long-range reader based on semi-active RFID technology that enables automatic vehicle identification at distances of up to 10 metres and speeds of up to 125 mph. The TRANSIT Ultimate reader from Nedap is designed for use in both high security applications and vehicular access control applications.  Nortech says it is suitable for use in: staff car parks; industrial site access control; fleet and parking management; and for priority vehicle

Designa has revamped its BlueEdition parking payment system family by developing three pay stations that offer different transaction options.  The all-in-one Pay Cash & Card can handle all payment transactions, whether with cash, debit and credit cards or cashless.  However, operators who want to dispense with coin payment can also opt for the card-only Pay Cashless or banknote and card-reading Pay Coinless stations. All three new pay stations are designed for processing tickets

CitiPark is to install a ticketless and barrier-less parking solution at a car park serving commuters from Rickmansworth railway station in Hertfordshire. The car park has a capacity of 140 spaces and is located adjacent to the station, which with both underground and overground line access makes it popular with commuters travelling in and out of London.  CitiPark has managed parking the site since 2016 and completed the purchase of the freehold in June last year.  APT Skidata will

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

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

Manchester Airports Group (MAG) has acquired Looking4.com, an online consolidator and price comparison business, for an undisclosed sum. Looking4.com and its team of 35 people will integrate into MAG’s Airport Services division, alongside the group’s dedicated technology division MAG-O, which aims to enhance an end-to-end airport experience for its passengers.  MAG hopes the acquisition will improve its ability to distribute and market its own car parking, airport lounges and

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

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

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.

SEA launched an eco-friendly version of its mobile traffic enforcement system at Parkex 2018. The zero emissions platform is based on a Citroën C-Zero electric vehicle housing the latest version of SEA’s ROADflow system for traffic enforcement in problems areas such as bus lanes, schools, yellow box junctions and restricted parking areas. There are currently over 50 active ROADflow mobile enforcement systems operating throughout the UK. Besides introducing a green vehicle, SEA has up

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

A partnership between RingGo and ParkBee that enables drivers to activate parking barriers via a phone app won the Parkex Innovation Trail Award. Dutch parking technology company ParkBee has created a system that can be integrated into existing barrier and gated car parks, enabling these facilities to open with the touch of a button in the RingGo cashless parking app. The ParkBee kit typically takes 30 minutes to install. The RingGo service has been used to open up ParkBee integrated car parks

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

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

Access control system supplier Nortech has designed a parking control system that combines both automatic barriers and parking ticket control to manage the use of private and public car parks. The Cwmbran-based company claims its FeeMaster Smart range is around one fifth of the cost of conventional systems.  The FeeMaster Smart range is a modular solution designed for a variety of parking management applications from simple car park control to full parking fee management and payment syste

Online parking reservation specialist ParkCloud has agreed a three-year renewal of its contract with Italy’s primary rail operator, Trenitalia, following a competitive tender process.   The renewal follows a four-year partnership between the companies.   ParkCloud’s relationship with Trenitalia gives passengers the opportunity to?compare and reserve car park spaces prior to their rail journey.  Customers booking through the dedicated portal Parcheggi Trenitalia have

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

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

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

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

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

Very powerful forces are pushing the parking sector towards a level of standardisation that would have been unimaginable when I came into the parking business, well over 30 years ago. Back then, the parking operations in each of country were very much self-contained, shaped by very different sets of laws and very different ways of doing things. But today we are starting to see that local differentiation break down across Europe and further afield. The programme for Parking & Property had a

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

Cambridge Consultants has developed a system called Goldeneye that is claimed to have taught itself to recognise cars and how those cars appear in spaces. “It can do this without expensive physical infrastructure and in a range of lighting and weather conditions, day and night, even proving itself during the severe snow that hit the UK earlier this year,” said Thomas Carmody, head of transport and infrastructure at Cambridge Consultants. Goldeneye is a ‘machine vision’

Parking equipment manufacturer APT Skidata has launched a ticketless system for operators that offer an initial free parking period based on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR). The Ticketless solution dispenses with conventional paper tickets or RFID cards, instead using either vehicle’s number plate or ‘virtual ticket’ as the access medium. An exit barrier linked to the system will automatically open for all paid parking transactions. If the customer has exceeded thei

Edinburgh Airport has signed a contract with parking reservation specialist ParkCloud. The agreement will enable ParkCloud to offer its users the option of reserving their parking across all of Edinburgh Airport’s car park products.  Drivers parking at the airport will be able to choose from long-stay, mid-stay and valet parking as well as an official off-site car park. ParkCloud will also be able to offer its customers flexible and non-flexible parking options across long-stay, long

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

Australian parking technology and management company Smart Parking has reported an increase in earnings, including an improved share of the UK market. First half results for the 2018 financial year show its overall growth trend continuing with increased margins as well as the delivery of new systems.  Group revenues stood at A$16.1m (£9m) up 26%. Its earnings before tax, interest and tax (EBITDA) was A$3.8m (£2m), up 115%. Smart Parking chief executive Paul Gillespie said: &ld

International Parking Systems (UK) is completing its first year of operations by moving into new, larger premises in the north of England. IPS is relocating from Winchester in Hampshire to Doncaster in South Yorkshire. Doncaster was chosen as the best location for the business due to its transport links, skilled workforce and the positive attitude displayed by Doncaster Metropolitan Borough Council. The new building will enable IPS to expand further in the near future by creating additional ma

APT Controls has changed its name to SWARCO UK. The parking system supplier is owned by the Austrian traffic technology group SWARCO, which is rationalising its legal entities as part of an initiative to deliver greater operational efficiencies and streamline services. Sean Dunstan, head of the company’s parking and e-mobility division, said the new name is part of a logical progression. “By centralising group services such as finance, IT and HR, and consolidating investments in R&

UK Parking Control was fined almost £6,000 after refusing to provide CCTV footage from a car park in Lincoln that had been requested in connection to an investigation into flytipping. Last September North Kesteven District Council was investigating the dumping of car parts and other materials near Leadenham. When searching the materials, the council team found a receipt for food bought from McDonald’s on Tritton Road in Lincoln. The council asked McDonald’s to provide interna

Dacorum Borough Council in Hertfordshire has awarded Indigo a new parking enforcement services contract. Indigo has been providing parking services for Dacorum in towns such as Berkhamsted and Hemel Hempstead for 14 years. Indigo was previously known as VINCI Park Services. The new contract, which came into effect on 9 April, is for five years with a potential four-year extension.  Indigo is investing in upgraded technology, including new IPS pay & display machines on-street and in ca

Every day, millions of us go about our daily lives because parking is managed fairly and responsibly to make sure we can all access the shops, leisure facilities, hospitals and supermarkets that might otherwise become congested. We understand that no one likes getting a parking ticket, and we always advise motorists who believe they have received one in error to contact the operator who issued it in the first instance. All of our members managing parking on private land subscribe to Parking on

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,

The RingGo cashless parking payment service has launched a new feature that will enable its users to open the barriers of private parking spaces booked in the UK via the ParkBee online parking marketplace. ParkBee is already partnering with RingGo’s sister brand Parkmobile in the Netherlands, where it has over 60 locations, and at 20 locations in the UK.  RingGo has been listing ParkBee sites without a barrier since April last year. It has now launched a new ‘Start/Stop’

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

Cleverciti will launch a 360 degree real-time digital signage solution for pole and aisle wayfinding at Parkex 2018.  The Cleverciti CIRC360 is an omni-directional floating LED sign that displays live parking  and can be mounted on existing lampposts within 15 minutes. The CIRC360 can be located directly above parking spaces and used for a range of dynamic on-street and open-air digital signage applications, including local parking guidance, advertising and other messaging, such as s

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

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

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

Chris Wortley has joined ParkJockey, a company that seeks to maximise income for parking real estate owners. He joins as vice president for airport solutions. Wortley has long been involved in the airport and local authority parking sectors. He spent eight years at Parkinguru, a UK consulting company that provided professional services to the airport parking sector.  Other roles Wortley has held include being airport parking services product manager for SITA, head of commercial parking an

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

HUB Parking Technology has appointed Lee Burton as managing director at its UK headquarters in Basingstoke. HUB Parking Technology is a business unit of FAAC Group that develops, manufactures and installs parking revenue control systems and provides after-sales services.  Burton has worked in the parking sector for 17 years, starting with Meteor Parking as business development manager for the security side of the business. He then moved to work in Meteor’s operations and contract ma

Mobile parking payments provider PayByPhone has appointed Andreas Gruber as president and chief executive officer.  Gruber, a former PayByPhone board member, takes up his new roles on 1 June. He said: “I have been deeply involved in the parking business in recent years through my board appointments at PayByPhone and Sunhill Technologies. Parking is today one of the key pain points for drivers around the world.” Lars Henner Santelmann, chief executive of PayByPhone’s pare

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gloucestershire Care Services NHS Trust has updated parking arrangements at Tewkesbury Community Hospital’s car park using Nortech technology. The trust wanted a barrier-based parking control system that would deter misuse of the hospital’s car park.  Entry control system specialist ASGuk Security and Safety Systems selected Nortech’s FeeMaster parking system for the project. The FeeMaster Smart parking management system does not require cabling between components, which

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

Parking system manufacturers Parkeon and Cale have unveiled Flowbird as the name of their now merged operations. The Flowbird Urban Technologies identity was unveiled at Intertraffic 2018 in Amsterdam. The companies, which announced their merger in January, believe the new name reflects their intention to strengthen their desire to be a provider of digital services. Bertrand Barthélemy, Flowbird’s chief executive, said the brand was inspired by the ease with which each bird moves

The Croatian city Split has started monitoring use of 1,500 street parking bays using a network of bay sensors. Split, located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, is a popular destination for tourists, meaning parking is often a scarce commodity. The city council’s in-house operation, Split Parking, manages and controls on and off-street parking in what is the second-largest city in Croatia. Split Parking has created an app linked to a sensor-based vehicle detection system to monitor parkin

A parking availability and payment system developed by Parkmobile Group and BMW was named Overall Winner of the Intertraffic Innovation Award last month. Five category winners and one overall winner were revealed during the opening ceremony of Intertraffic Amsterdam 2018 on 20 March in the presence of HRH Prince Constantijn van Oranje and Cora van Nieuwenhuizen, Dutch minister of infrastructure and water management.  The Overall Winner was Parkmobile Group with its On-Street Parking Inform

Siemens has appointed Wilke Reints as the company’s new managing director for the Intelligent Traffic Systems (ITS) business in the UK to succeed Tom MacMorran, who retired at the end of March. Reints (pictured) has spent over 20 years with Siemens. He first joined the company in 1992, moving to the ITS business three years later. He has held a variety of positions, including working in project management for the Athens Olympic Games as well as other large traffic management-related proje

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

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

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

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

The Woolshops shopping centre in Halifax has updated its car parking system.  The West Yorkshire retail destination has more than 40 stores and cafés, offering visitors a mix of fashion and café culture.  Woolshops is a short walk from Halifax railway station and bus station, and has direct access car parking for more than 300 vehicles across two decks. The car park is now managed using an ABACUS pay-on-foot system from Designa.  Jason Gregg, shopping centre manag

Traffic enforcement and management solutions provider Videalert has upgraded its Digital Video Platform so that it simultaneously supports the enforcement of civil traffic contraventions, traffic management and community safety applications. The upgrade includes integration with mobile enforcement vehicles from third party suppliers including TES and SEA, a new analytics engine and an enhanced evidence pack review function. Tim Daniels, sales and marketing director of Videalert, said: “V

Online parking reservation leader ParkCloud, has added a second Polish airport to its portfolio of airport parking providers.  Poland’s fourth largest airport, Katowice International Airport, has added its P2 car park to ParkCloud’s global booking platform, enabling its near 3 million users to reserve a space prior to departing for their journey.  P2 is an open air long-stay car park, located just 300m from both terminals A and B, with free transfers to and from the

Parking reservation provider ParkCloud entered a new market, announcing Canada as the 42nd country where its services are available to online customers. ParkCloud is now offering online parking reservation services to customers  travelling from Toronto Pearson International Airport.  Passengers using the airport’s self-park facilities at both terminal 1 and 3 can now be able to reserve their space before they travel, with 24-hour access a

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

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

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

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

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

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

ºLeighton Ponting has joined parking payment system manufacturer IPS UK as regional manager for Wales and South West England. Ponting brings a wealth of experience in the parking industry to the growing IPS team, including 12 years working for ASCOM Wireless Solutions, then a succession of roles at access control specialist Nortech Control Solutions, ANPR system provider SEA, parking software developer Imperial Civil Enforcement Systems and traffic management system provider Clearview Inte

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

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

Mobile parking solutions company Parkmobile LLC has undergone a recapitalisation of the business and investment by BMW Group.  BMW Group, which had been a minority investor in Parkmobile since 2014, will now be the sole outside investor after buying out the legacy shareholders in the business. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction sees Parkmobile consolidate its shareholder base and gain access to capital to accelerate growth and innovation. The announcement comes as Par

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&

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

The Cascades shopping centre in Portsmouth city centre has upgraded its pay-on-foot system, opting to install the WPS ParkAdvance system. The six-level car park has 615 spaces, 32 of which are disabled access. The car park now has five pay stations, three entry terminals and a total of five barriers. Andrew Philip, Cascades’ centre manager, said parking technology and thinking has advanced considerably in recent years. “Parking is no longer considered a simple provision, but rather

Allego, a provider of electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions and cloud services, has appointed traffic technology supplier Siemens to support the deployment and operation of fast-chargers in the UK, beginning in London.  Siemens will supply, commission and service the project for the first 12 months under contract to Allego. The service agreement is supported by Siemens’ UK service operation centre and 350 field service engineers who have been trained and qualified to work on petro

Driveways and empty parking spaces rented out via YourParkingSpace.co.uk made their owners £12m in 2017, reports the online parking portal.  Over 15,000 space owners using the site earned more than £500 each, with London being the capital of driveway rentals, accounting for a third of all bookings. London made up 34% of all earnings, closely followed by Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and Manchester. The company said that towns such as Dudley, Wolverhampton, Luton and Stoke-on-Tre

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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

London-based tech company Magora has developed a parking app for a European client. The Parking Guide has been designed to help drivers locate available parking in city centres. “Tasked by several businesspeople from the continent, we set about creating a mobile application to simplify parking in overcrowded cities,” says the Shoreditch-based company. “These partners were in need of a universal virtual parking assistant, and they sought to incorporate it into a unique mobile a

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

The DVLA sold 1,429,703 vehicle keeper records to the private parking firms in the second quarter of 2017-18, the RAC Foundation has revealed. The motoring organisation calculates that this is 1,177% (or almost 13 times) higher than the 111,944 records sold a decade earlier in the second quarter of 2007-8. The information is used by parking companies to pursue vehicle owners for parking charge notices (PCNs) of up to £100 issued to drivers who have infringed parking regulations on privat

A car park payment system that gives drivers of less polluting vehicles cheaper parking is among the finalists in the 2017 National Air Quality Awards Parking operator CitiPark and technology provider APT Skidata have been shortlisted for the Commercial Sector Air Quality Initiative of the Year for their work to incentivise city drivers towards low or zero emissions vehicles through the use of emissions-based parking tariffs. CitiPark has installed APT Skidata’s emissions-based parking t

Parking system manufacturers Parkeon and Cale have entered into exclusive negotiations that could bring about their merger. Parkeon is based in France, while Cale is a Swedish company. Both companies produce parking payment terminals and management software. The enlarged group would have around 1,300 employees largely based in France, UK, Sweden and North America. It is planned that the Cale and Parkeon brands would both continue

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

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

Renault’s DS Automobiles brand has unveiled a car key that features an integrated contactless payment function. The device uses RFID technology to act as both a car key and a convenient way to pay with contactless technology. Customers who purchased a DS3 Connected Chic model throughout September will receive the integrated car key, allowing them to make purchases up to the eligible spending limit of £30 at more than 490,000 locations across the UK. Customers will also be able to t

Over half of drivers in the UK have overpaid for parking by 20 minutes or more, according to research undertaken by app developer EasyPark. The YouGov online study of 1,000 car owners also revealed that not being able to find an available space is one of their biggest parking frustrations (46%). The research indicates that: 29% of people spend more than 10 minutes looking for parking; 28% are forced to travel over 20 minutes from their parking spot to their final destination; 23% of drivers hav

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

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

Mobile parking Mobile parking payments provider PayByPhone has appointed Francis Dupuis as president and chief executive officer. US-based Dupuis takes over from Kush Parikh, who steps down after three-and-half-years in the role of president and CEO. During his time at PayByPhone, Parikh led the business back to profitability and was pivotal in its sale to Volkswagen Financial Services.  “With more than 20 years of experience in the software industry and a deep product background, F

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

Universities and colleges face an ever growing demand for access to parking space on their campuses. In order to ensure their limited parking supply is used by staff, students and visitors with the most needs, many further and higher education establishments have introduced paid and permit parking controls, which in turn depend on enforcement to be effective. This is the case at the University of York. A major challenge facing the managers of university campuses is ensuring that their parking c

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

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-

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

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

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

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

The Forestry Commission is experiencing a growth in visitor numbers to its recreational centres in England, which is in turn increasing pressure on parking areas. Some of the Forestry Commission’s venues have extensive facilities with several hundred parking spaces, while other sites are more remote with limited or no parking. The commission has introduced parking charges at some sites, using the revenue to fund enhancements.  “Access to the nation’s forests is free and c

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

An underground car park that uses a spiral ramp approach to create structure with a minimal number columns has been named the Best New Car Park in Europe.  The Park Primo Maggio, in the Italian town of Udine was among the winners at the European Parking Awards. The 387-space car park has been designed so cars park on a gently sloping spiral as well as decks that have been configured as clearspan environments. The Best Renovation Award was also won by an underground car park project. Cont

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parkmobile Group has expanded its UK offices to support international growth of its cashless parking brands: ParkNow, RingGo and Parkmobile.  The addition of more space to its offices in Basingstoke, Hampshire, comes on the back of investment from the group’s shareholder, German car-maker BMW.  The additional 300m2 space will accommodate a 47% growth in headcount, with 44 people joining the Basingstoke office since the start of the year. Most of the new recruits are supporting

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

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

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

Parking on private land was put in the spotlight by ITV’s Tonight current affairs strand on 10 August. The programme, called The True Cost of Parking, looked at how, with a record 30m cars on Britain’s roads, the services of the private parking industry have spread to shopping centres, supermarkets, railway stations and NHS hospitals. Reporter Fiona Foster’s programme suggested that the millions of parking tickets now being handed out to motorists each year by private parking

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

Football fans could be paying more than double the price for parking rather than for cheaper nearby alternatives, claims an online parking marketplace. Research carried out for YourParkingSpace reveals that, for example, Premier League Manchester United offers official parking for £10, whereas three-and-a-half-hours parking a 15-minute walk from Old Trafford is available through YourParkingSpace at a price of £3.  Meanwhile, followers of the newly promoted Brighton and Hove Al

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

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

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

There is a very real risk of organisations throughout the public and private sectors sleepwalking into the minefield of significant and far-reaching new data protection regulations. While we should take comfort that the new regulations on the horizon will help to safeguard the use of our personal data, the compliance challenges facing any organisation with a responsibility for managing and processing such data are considerable. And we should be under no illusion; the financial penalties for non-

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

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

Stuart Gardner has joined parking system supplier IPS (UK) as regional manager for the South East. Gardner has worked in the parking sector for over 30 years, having served 26 years with ZEAG and more recently four years with Metric Group specialising in the design and implementation of parking systems. IPS (UK) is the British arm of the North American IPS Group. On joining IPS Gardner said: “I am delighted to start with IPS. The technology is game-changing for our sector and I cannot wa

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

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

Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, unveiled the design of the new £10 note featuring the author Jane Austen on the 200th anniversary of her death. The note is printed on polymer and is the first Bank of England banknote with a tactile feature to help blind and partially sighted users. It joins the Churchill £5 in the first family of polymer Bank of England banknotes and a new £20 note featuring JMW Turner will follow in 2020.  The £10 note contains new se

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

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

Online parking platform Parkonomy.com claims it was able to start offering cashless parking services for an operator within 24 hours of signing them up at Parkex 2017. Phoenix Parking Solutions’ Dale Key approached Parkonomy at the Parkex show, which was held at Birmingham NEC’s in April. Although he had no previous knowledge about the company, after that parking operators can use the Parkonomy platform and back office for free he signed at the show. The following day, the eight c

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

An online guide to HGV parking facilities across Europe now enables drivers to pre-book places. PTV Truck Parking Europe provides information on 26,000 HGV parking areas providing 600,000 spaces across the continent. It has been download

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

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

Location has historically been the driving factor when it comes to planning and running car parks, but in the future data and communication will become increasingly important. Over time towns and cities have adopted a fairly similar approach to managing what had been a growing demand for limited parking supply by initially placing time restrictions on spaces and then introducing charges. There are two types of trends that might have an influence on the parking sector: societal and demographical

Forget children owing the Bank of Mum and Dad, it’s actually parents who are in debt to their children as nearly half of parents (4%) have borrowed or ‘stolen’ their children’s pocket money to pay things like parking fees. Research carried out by Nationwide Savings reveals the average amount taken by parents is £21.41, though 10% of parents admitting to pilfering £50 or more. Paying the school lunch money (15%) or a bill (15%) are top reasons for raiding th

Parking technology company Parkeon has appointed Kenny Scouller to the new role of UK off-street sales manager. He joins Parkeon from CAME Parkare, where he was national sales manager and operations manager. At Parkeon Scouller will be responsible for supporting existing customers while developing new business opportunities across multiple sectors, including retail, public administration, health, higher education and transport. Many of Parkeon’s recent parking solutions incorporate ticke

Homeowners in almost 30 towns and cities across the UK made an average of more than £1,000 per year from renting their empty driveway, according to research by online parking marketplace YourParkingSpace.co.uk Driveways in London netted the most money, earning their owners on average a very tidy £2,303 per year, claims YourParkingSpace. “This is up 6% on the previous year, reflecting a growing demand for the service and increased awareness among homeowners of the money earning

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

Liverpool John Lennon Airport is now using a camera system to detect drivers trying to avoid paying for parking by tailgating when leaving its barrier-controlled car parks. Besides representing a loss of revenue, tailgating causes safety issues as drivers seeking to cheat the car park have to race to beat the barrier to avoid payment.  Problems with tailgating in its car parks meant that the airport needed a means of identifying and dealing with car park cheats. It turned to ANPR Internat

The latest version of the app produced by parking marketplace YourParkingSpace.co.uk enables customers to adjust their parking time if they are late back to their vehicle, rather than having to guess beforehand how much time they might need. Harrison Woods, managing director of YourParkingSpace, said: “A huge bugbear to motorists is returning to their vehicle to find they have been issued with a ticket just for being a few minutes late, more often than not when it is no fault of their own

IPS Group (IPS) has developed a mobile payment application that can help drivers locate a parking space while en route and, via real-time notifications alert users in advance of parking expiration. The app also features a simple but secure sign-in process and is linked to Visa’s online payment platform. The Park Smarter app was launched on the North American market at the IPI Conference in New Orleans at the end of May. “Using mobile apps to manage parking transact

Apriva, a provider of secure end-to-end wireless transaction processing solutions in the USA, has completed integration and certification with Metric Parking, to offer the strongest unattended EMV payment solution in the USA to date. The certification spans all major card brands including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, enabling the use of EMV chip card technology over Apriva’s processor connections. Peter Aylward, managing director at Metric Parking, said: “The

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

Car park and transport ticket printer BemroseBooth Paragon (BBP) has promoted Ryan Mellors to the role of vice president of global sales – parking. The Hull-based company, which produces magnetic tickets for use in parking, bus and rail payment systems, said Mellors’ new role reflects its growing presence in North America, South America and Canada. Richard Farmer, sales and marketing director for BemroseBooth Paragon, said: “Ryan will make these territories a focus, extending

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

Pay & display machines have been attacked or stolen outright by criminals attempting to steal cash left in overnight, reports the British Parking Association (BPA). There have been reports from of thieves ripping machines straight from the ground under the cover of darkness in Bristol and Birmingham. The BPA also reports a number of beak-ins in which thieves have drilled into the side of machines in an attempt to access the cash box. The association says it has been informed of have been i

The Bank of England withdrew the legal tender status of the Elizabeth Fry £5 note on 5 May. This means that retailers and the public no longer have to accept the paper currency, either as payment or in change. The paper note has been superseded by a new polymer note – featuring a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill – that was first issued on 13 September 2016. The Bank of England introduced the polymer note as it is longer lasting, dirt and moisture-resistant and harder to count

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

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

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

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

Parking payment systems have been upgraded at three hospitals within the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. The new pay-on-foot systems have been installed at North Tyneside General Hospital (NTGH) in North Shields, Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital (NSECH) in Cramlington and at the Wansbech General Hospital. The hospitals have been equipped with Designa’s ABACUS parking system comprising ANPR cameras linked to entrance and exit barriers and payment terminals. All t

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

Parking remains a relatively small spend for most users, on a daily basis at least. Despite the emergence of multiple cashless options, from stored value cards to contactless and account based ticketing, no one is predicting the demise of cash fulfilment anytime soon.  However, there are strong signs that the contactless revolution is gaining traction, spurred on by the desire of banks to optimise the operational efficiencies of this methodology and by growing customer confidence in using

A pick-up and drop-off facility opened at Glasgow Airport at the end of April. The purpose-built covered area is the final stage of a wider scheme of works A pick-up and drop-off facility opened at Glasgow Airport at the end of April. The purpose-built covered area is the final stage of a wider scheme of works designed to reduce congestion and improve the flow of traffic on the airport’s road network. Amanda McMillan, managing director at Glasgow Airport, said: “In addition to addre

Ofcom has been warned that proposals to open up part of the radio spectrum used for tag and beacon services to other communications services could create problems at bridges and toll roads. Intelligent Transport Systems (UK) has written to Ofcom on behalf of toll operators in Britain in response to the communications watchdog’s consultation on opening up the 5.8 GHz spectrum to Wi-Fi and other communication. This part of the spectrum is currently used for electronic tolling and other shor

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

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

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

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

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

Parking equipment manufacturer WPS has appointed Mike Allen as national service manager. Allen joins WPS from Gilgen Door Systems, where he managed a team of service engineers.  His arrival coincides with WPS’s introduction of software that streams live information on system performance, servicing schedules, and the exact location of replacement parts and spares when needed. “It will help our engineers to be more proactive, productive and efficient and, therefore, giving our

Richard Boultbee has left Metric Group to become executive director of IPS (UK), the British operation of North American parking equipment systems manufacturer IPS Group. Boultbee’s parking career started with a 10-year tenure at Amber Valley Borough Council in Derbyshire, where he was parking and CCTV officer. He joined the sales team at payment systems manufacturer Metric Group in 2003, rising to the role of director of sales and marketing. IPS (UK) is marketing a range of payment solu

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

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

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

The 5-star Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, south Wales, has expanded its parking capacity by 600 spaces through the opening of two new visitor car parks. Both car parks have been equipped with WPS ParkAdvance pay-on-foot parking technology, which is already used at the golf course and hotel’s main underground car park. Celtic Manor consists of three hotels (The Resort Hotel, Manor House Hotel and Coldra Court Hotel), a country inn, luxury lodges, two spas, six restaurants, three champion

A car covered in yellow parking charge notices (PCNs) is being used to remind motorists to be careful when leaving their vehicles on private land.  The ticket-plastered vehicle is the brainchild of Costas Constantino, director of FlashPark, a company specialising in ‘self-ticketing’.  The ‘Ticket Car’, which is covered in parking charge notices, demonstrates how an ignored notice or fine can proliferate. It will drive round major UK cities and towns beginning

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

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

Tony Jones will take over sole responsibility for Designa UK following the retirement of managing director Ewan Miller on 1 April. Jones has been the parking payment systems supplier’s sales manager for over eight years and became joint managing director in November 2016. Jones’ career has included being sales manager in companies supplying instrumentation products to the petrochemical, brewing and sugar milling industries. He also had a career in the South African premier football

The new 12-sided £1 coin became legal tender from 27 March and is now being rolled out across the country. HM Treasury and The Royal Mint have been working with the parking industry to prepare for the introduction and are urging businesses to make sure they are prepared for the upcoming co-circulation period, where both the old and new coins will be accepted as legal tender until 15 October.  This is the first time the £1 coin has been introduced in over 30 years. The new 12-si

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

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

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

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

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

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

Intelligent transport systems (ITS) specialist Peter Cattell has joined traffic systems supplier Clearview Intelligence as a senior solutions manager.  This will be his second stint at the company. Catell started his career in the ITS sector at Siemens, before moving to Clearview, and then on to project delivery, product management and sales roles at Colas, Dynniq and, most recently, at Rennicks.  In his new role, Peter will assume responsibility for Clearview clients across the Midl

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 systems supplier WPS has recruited Andrew Wheeler as senior business development manager for the South West and Wales. Wheeler started his career as a graduate project manager for Sainsbury’s. He has spent the last 10 years in the electronic and online payments industry, including seven years with the ENoteMachine cash machine networks and, more recently, with ATM group DC Payments UK. At WPS Wheeler will be promoting systems such the ParkAdvance. “Customers and clients are

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A judge has told a leading druid that he can take English Heritage (EH) to court to challenge parking charges at Stonehenge.  Parking at the Neolithic monument, which is managed by EH, usually costs £5. The parking fee rose to £15 during the 2016 summer solstice. King Arthur Pendragon argued the £15 breached his human rights and led to 12,500 people being excluded from the event.  A judge at Salisbury County Court granted Pendragon a full hearing at a small claims

Motorists claiming they were issued parking charge notices in a private car park because a payment terminal did not correctly register their number plates can have the tickets waived, as long as they pay an administration fee. The offer to waive the PCNs was made by the car park’s operator, Premier Parking Solutions (PPS), which runs the Keaton Road car park in Ivybridge, near Plymouth. Drivers displaying parking tickets with an incorrect vehicle registration number were deemed to be brea

Visitors to hospitals were issued an estimated £13.3m in parking fines last year according to a FOI request by online parking place YourParkingSpace.co.uk. The parking charge notices (PCNs) issued at NHS sites ranged in price from £10 to £100. The company’s analysis, based on 136 NHS trust responses, showed that one in ten of the 159,000 tickets issued were appealed, of which two-thirds were successfully overturned. “The chances of successfully appealing a ticket

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

Land Securities is upgrading parking payment systems at two of its shopping centres, Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth and the Lewisham Centre, south-east London. The property company has commissioned APT Skidata to supply new systems at both sites. The car parks at each centre will be equipped with APT Skidata’s Power.Gate control columns, to control entry and exit.  Initially, the control columns at both sites will be fitted with optic scanners that will read e-tickets on smartphones or

New street parking charges in a Mexican city are being collected using parking terminals made by UK-based Metric Parking. San Pedro Cholula has introduced on-street parking fees as part of the municipality’s urban mobility strategy. Funds raised through charging for parking will be reinvested in the city such as maintenance of parks and street lighting. The paid parking zones will mainly be in commercial and tourist areas of the city, with the municipality offering guaranteed insurance a

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

A CCTV-based ANPR system has been installed at the University of Hertfordshire to control rising bollards at two main entrances to the De Havilland Campus at Hatfield. The Videalert system is designed to provide a safe pedestrian area within the campus, which is used by 2,700 members of staff and a student community of more than 24,500. The Videalert system has been deployed on a hosted basis to automate the control of the rising bollards that restrict access to the campus to authorised vehicle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The initials are the same – IPC – but the International Parking Community has a much more ambitious remit than its original incarnation, the Independent Parking Committee. This was the message delivered by IPC director Will Hurley at the organisation’s annual conference, which was held at the Hallmark Mickleover Court Hotel near Derby on 3 November. “It has been an outstanding year for the International Parking Community, with membership continuing to grow under our new a

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

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

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

APT Skidata has launched a feature that enables car park operators set individual parking tariffs according to the CO2 emissions of the vehicles. The system uses ANPR cameras to identify and record each vehicle as it enters a car park, and compares the registration to a database that includes details around CO2 emissions. Pete Brown, APT Skidata’s managing director, says the feature en

Veri-park, a ticketless parking payment systems supplier, has launched a vehicle counting technology that can be integrated with variable message signs (VMS) to direct traffic through busy town centres. Data is securely transmitted by Veri-park’s new system via the cloud to the VMS to give drivers up-to-date and accurate information on the availability of car parking spaces, helping local councils to improve traffic flow, reduce congestion, and minimise pollution and journey times. The Ve

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.

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

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

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

Parking operators will need to ensure that pay stations can accept both the new 12-sided pound coin and the existing round version for a six-month transitional period starting in March 2017. This requirement affects all operators of cash vending machines that accept £1 coins. A new website (www.thenewpoundcoin.com) launched b

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

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

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

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

Lerwick Port Authority has ordered new parking terminals at the Victoria Pier car park. The new Metric Elite LS replace existing Metric Accent machines, which were installed almost a decade ago. Lerwick is the main port for the Shetland Islands welcoming 30,000 passengers from cruise ships each year, as well as ferries, cargo, fishing vessels, and sailing yachts.  Despite being so far north, the Shetlands do not experience extremes in temperature, though they rarely get above 15°C, ev

The Forestry Commission is to install ticketless parking terminals at over 40 woods and forests across the UK. The commission has awarded a contract to Newpark to install its Fusion pay-on-foot parking system. The Fusion system uses ANPR cameras at the entrance to each car park, automatically raising the barriers and eliminating the need for drivers having to wait for tickets to be dispensed.  A virtual ticket is created upon entry and is used to allow the vehicle to leave by automatically

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reading Borough Council is to install real-time sensors across all of its on-street disabled bays as part of a European Union research project called SIMON. SIMON (asSIsted Mobility for Older aNd impaired users) is a project that aims to use ICT services to promote the independent living and social participation of mobility impaired people by giving them information and access to public parking areas and multiple transport modes. The SIMON Mobile app enables disabled citizens to validate their

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

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

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

While a lacklustre England crashed out of the European Championship, one of the highlights of the football tournament’s was the progress of Wales to the semi-final. The success of the Welsh national team, led by Gareth Bale, caught out rivals, fans and pundits alike. This was the case even with former Wales international Dean Saunders, who was among the panellists covering the tournament for the BBC. Saunders made headlines when he admitted that, not expecting the Wales side to get very

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

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

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

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

Electric vehicle charging company Ecotricity has introduced a £6 fee for a 30-minute recharge at its stations across the country. The company’s Electric Highway network was launched five years ago and now features 296 charging points – almost all of which are at motorway service areas. Ecotricity says the Electric Highway’s 40,000 members will need to download a new mobile phone app to make payments. The app will also provide of a ‘live feed’ of the entire ne

Porsche is backing the development a parking app called Evopark via its newly launched division Porsche Digital The Evopark app offers drivers a monthly account as an alternative to paper-based parking transactions. The app also enables barriers to be raised automatically at participating car parks. Evopark was founded in 2014 in Cologne and its app-based parking service is now available in

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

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

District Enforcement has started using the Parkonomy.com online platform to take payments not just for parking but to also manage boat moorings. District Enforcement provides signage, tickets and training that enables owners of private car parks to issue the parking charge notices. Details of the notices are then sent to District Enforcement, which processes them. In a bid to enhance the service where the parking is open to public, District Enforcement has started offering its clients the Park

Parkmobile has entered the ‘sharing economy’ arena with the launch a peer-to-peer parking service called spacehopper. This sees the cashless parking provider go into competition against players such as JustPark and YourParkingSpace. Parkmobile wants to create a new marketplace for the informal parking spaces outside traditional paid-for parking provided by private and public sector operators. The new service will seek to offer spaces belonging to homeowners, small businesses, clubs

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

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

Parkeon revealed its plans for terminal-based environmental monitoring, bike rental and car sharing at Parkex 2016. Parkeon believes that on-street and off-street parking terminals could soon be driving services as diverse as air quality monitoring, bike rental and holiday park management.  “We’re redefining the role of parking machines,” said Danny Hassett, Parkeon’s regional parking director. “In effect, our parking terminals are open platform multi-service

Plymouth City Council has become the first UK local authority to roll out Parkeon’s City Connector scheme, which enables local retailers to offer couponing and discounts via the company’s StradaPAL parking terminals. The transformation of parking terminals into multi-service kiosks provides businesses with a new marketing channel by enabling both motorists and pedestrians to scroll through and print coupons and special offers redeemable in the local area. The Plymouth project cover

Horsham District Council is analysing data generated by its parking terminals to help develop and implement future parking strategies.  The Sussex council has installed 13 Parkeon Strada terminals in its town centre control zone, all which are linked to a centralised management information system.  The Parkfolio management system’s networking functionality provides real-time information that enables the timely collection of cash, fault logging and ticket roll replacement. The

The Ricoh Arena, home to Premiership Rugby team Wasps and Coventry City Football Club, is using a ticketless pay-on-foot system to manage its parking. The arena has 2,000 parking bays that are used by visitors using its conference, training, banqueting, exhibition, hotel, music and sports facilities. The car park is now managed using the Fusion payment system from Newpark Solutions, which won the contract via a competitive tender. The Fusion system combines high-definition ANPR technology with

Cashless parking specialist RingGo is marketing ‘corsets’ for parking payment machines that are taken out of service rather than being upgraded to accept the new £1 coin, which enters circulation in March 2017.  The corsets were developed as an alternative to traditional meter bags by RingGo’s parent company Cobalt Telephone Technologies.  The corsets wrap around payment machines and carry a printed message panel that encourages motorists to either pay using t

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

A businessman has taken the unusual step of buying a council car park and making it free to use. Rob Braddick bought a 50-year lease on the Seafield Car Park in the Devon village of Westward Ho! in May. Previously there had been a £3 daily charge at the 20-space coastal car park run by Torridge District Council. But Braddick, owner of several local bars, restaurants and holiday centres, announced on Facebook that the site could be used free of charge.  He stated: “Hot off the

Brighton & Hove City Council is planning to invest £1.8m upgrading its on-street parking terminals so that over 80% are pay-by-card only. This would see the number of machines that take coins dropping from the current 800 to just 150. The authority plans to procure 320 new pay & display units and update 330 existing P&D units, which would accept Chip & PIN and contactless card payment only. Another 150 machines would accept both cards and the new 12-sided £1 coin, whi

Parking China, which was launched in Shanghai this year, will return to the city next year. The second edition of the event will form a strand of the Intelligent Green Building exhibition, which runs from 5-7 September 2017.  Parking China is jointly organised by Messe Frankfurt (Shanghai) and Langfang Conference & Exhibition Company to serve China’s rapdily developing parking industry. The

Machine vision technology could provide a cost-effective way of monitoring car park occupancy and on-street parking bays without the need to invest in infrastructure such as sensors. The parking bay monitoring system has been created by product design and development firm Cambridge Consultants working with semiconductor design and manufacturing company Analog Devices. The system combines a low-cost camera with an algorithm running on a low-cost processing platform. The algorithm is able to cal

An on-street parking guidance system connected to pay-on-foot systems in car parks is to be installed in Taunton, Somerset. The £1.2m scheme is set to start in late 2017, with pay-on-foot replacing pay & display in seven town centre car parks. The system will cut congestion, improve air quality and played a central role in the town’s regeneration, said Taunton Deane Borough Council.  Variable message signs (VMS) will offer drivers real-time data on the number of available s

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

Ticket printer BemroseBooth Paragon (BBP) has started restructuring its business following the purchase of Magnadata in August 2015. Manufacturing of all magnetic products and paper-based items will move to BBP’s plant in Hull, while a technology centre will be maintained at Magnadata’s home in Boston, Linconshire. Around 20 jobs will be made available at the Hull site on Stockholm Road, with the company moving all heavy production capabilities from Boston.  Rob Burgin, gener

A ladies rugby team has found a sponsor in the form of parking systems supplier WPS UK. The under-20s team from the Bristol Academy of Sport, part of the South Gloucester and Stroud College (SGS), which was being picked to represent the UK in the Under 20s Rugby World Cup in Japan in April following a surprise win over long-considered favourites, Hartpury.  The team, which plays in Swindon, approached businesses to help fund new kit as well as travel and accommodation for the tournament.

Xerox will be separating into two publicly traded companies at the end of the year. The business process outsourcing company, which will encompass parking, will be called Conduent, while the document technology company will continue to be called Xerox Corporation. The name Conduent is intended to reflect the new company’s work in connecting clients and offering seamless transactions in areas such as transportation, customer care and healthcare. Ursula Burns, chair and chief executive of

Pay-on-foot parking system manufacturer WPS has added a range of pay & display machines to its portfolio. WPS has agreed a new partnership agreement with the German business WSA to market and distribute the latter’s TicketLine pay & display ticketing machines throughout the UK. While WSA’s largest market is in Germany, the TicketLine range is also sold in Norway, Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary.  Simon Jarvis, managing director of WPS in the UK, said that the part

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

Hanwha Techwin Europe has launched a camera-based vehicle access control solution that it says can be put to work straight out of the box. The WiseNet Access system takes advantage of features incorporated in the WiseNet open platform HD bullet camera, including built-in IR LEDs, Defog and Digital Image Stabilisation (DIS).  The WiseNet SNO-6084R/ANP 2MP comes with preloaded ANPR software. Hanwha Techwin Europe (formerly Samsung Techwin) says this gives WiseNet Access users the ability to

Online portal Parkonomy.com is now taking bookings and payments at a group of temporary car parks operated across the North West by Hallmark Developments.  Rochdale-based property company Hallmark Developments uses undeveloped land to provide additional parking facilities in sought after locations. Parkonomy.com is now be processing all bookings and payments for the car park online. Parkonomy.com’s sales manager Dave Coates believes there are many more opportunities ahead. “Ha

Cycles and Segways can be used to enforce parking permit schemes using an ANPR system developed in the Netherlands. Abstract Computing International (ABI) is a Dutch company specialising in mobile ANPR systems for parking enforcement. Its side-scanning SCANaCAR registration plate reading technology has been mounted on cars and vans (ScanAuto), and motorcycles (ScanScooter). ABI has now developed a version that can be deployed on both bicycles and Segways. Th

Southampton City Council is introducing CCTV enforcement of bus lanes in key areas of the city. The fixed bus lane cameras will go live on 20 June  Paul Walker, travel and transport manager at Southampton City Council, said: “This project will enable us to reduce the incidence of vehicles misusing bus lanes. Automating the enforcement of these contraventions will improve driver compliance, allow our public transport services to achieve faster, more reliable journey times and improve

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

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

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

UK access control system manufacturer Nortech Control Systems has promoted Amer Hafiz to the role of technical director. Hafiz joined Nortech in January 2012 as manager of the company’s research and development team. Before joining Nortech, Hafiz held senior positions in the engineering departments of both Sony and Panasonic. Stephen Blackler, managing director of Nortech, said: “Amer has had a major impact on the research and development department since he took over as the manage

Traffic enforcement and management solutions company Videalert has appointed Jonathan Hector as business development manager. This is a new role developing business opportunities with customers and partners as well as providing technical support for deployments of Videalert solutions. Hector has more than 30 years’ engineering experience. Before joining Videalert, he spent five years with SEA as product manager heading a team of 17 people handling the design, development, manufacture, del

Nine members of Cobalt Telephone Technologies’ staff  competed in a 10k road race to raise money for charity. The Hook Fun Run raises funds for local organisations and charities in Hampshire. Over the past 24 years it has raised £105,000. This year’s event is expected to donate £5,000 to local schools, sports, arts and young people’s activities. A record 1,100 runners crossed the line on 15 May. Cobalt project manager Katy Willcox managed training for the eve

Honesty is still considered the best policy for a church near Exeter, Devon, which is attempting to manage the use of its car park by non-parishioners, St Clement’s Church, which sits in a conservation area, has rejected the installation of a pay & display machine in favour of an honesty box.  The car park is popular with those using the Exe Estuary cycling path and walkway, and drivers are asked to make a voluntary donation into a stone box in the car park. But there is a limi

Transport in Europe is destined to be one of self-driving cars, cashless systems and smart app solutions, according to new research commissioned for services and technology company Xerox.  The research was conducted among 1,200 people living in 12 cities across the UK, Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands. When UK residents were asked to consider the future transport landscape of their city, the research revealed that 45% of Londoners predict they won’t be using cash to pay f

Where parking is located and how spaces are managed will be transformed as the way in which we travel to, from and within urban centres changes. As cars and customers become more connected, the era of Intelligent Mobility will see the role and form of parking facilities evolve. Ultimately, the distinctions between on-street and off-street parking will become blurred. These are some of the predictions of Theo Thuis, chief operating officer of Q-Park, a parking management company that operates ac

WPS is to demonstrate the latest developments to its ParkAdvance pay-on-foot system at Parkex. WPS stand will showcase new payment and ticketing methods including contactless payment and tokenised Card-In/Card-Out ticketless operation as well as new payment apps. The next generation of ParkAdvance’s functionality, which builds on its IP (internet protocol) based system architecture will be on show. These functions include: new approaches for centralised control; the integ

Coventry City Council is the first local authority to trial the use of on-street parking sensors to enable drivers to see parking availability in real-time via the AppyParking app and website. The trial sees total 72 bays have been fitted with low energy, long life sensors supplied by Nwave. The sensors cover every disabled parking bay in Coventry and 36 paid parking bays. The Nwave Sparkit sensors are low-profile surface mounted sensors that take under a minute to install. The wireless techn

The developers of AppyParking, a parking information app believe their system can help drivers avoid getting parking tickets by breaching restrictions that apply on Bank Holidays. As a rule parking restrictions are relaxed on Bank Holidays, but this is not the case in London.?Only 10 of the 33 boroughs in London allow parking on Bank Holidays, the rest relax the rules on Easter Sunday, Christmas Day, Boxing Day & New Year’s Day. These rules, however, only cover single yellow lines. T

Economists see the world rather differently from other people. So, while the majority probably believe free parking is a good thing, as an economist I know it is not – except of course when I’m driving, in which case free parking is an excellent idea! Few, if any, of us like to pay for parking. The writers of the sitcom Seinfeld made this point in a very male orientated way. George Costanza to Elaine Benes: “My father didn’t pay for parking, my mother, my brother, nobod

Parking ticket manufacturer Nagels Group is rebranding its activities. Nagels has group companies in the UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Canada, US, and Australia. Nagels produces a wide range of paper tickets and plastic cards for use in parking payment systems. Last year Nagels produced 3.5 billion car park tickets, which were supplied to 85 countries in 2015. The company has manufacturing bases in Germany and Canada, as well as a new Australian plant is allowing expa

Payment system manufacturer Scheidt & Bachmann has released its first parking app. The Parkvogel self-checkout app enables car park users to scan a pay-on-foot ticket using their mobile phone rather than queue at a pay station. Payment is made either via credit card or via PayPal.  The app has been integrated into the Scheidt & Bachmann parking management system and can be customised to the requirements of the client. A built-in transaction history provides an overview of all parki

Cumbria County Council has launched a series of charging points for electric vehicles across the county. Nine sites were made available to residents, visitors and businesses in April. The charge points are located in Carlisle, Kendal, Workington, Whitehaven, Keswick, Ulverston, Kirkby Stephen, Kirkby Lonsdale and Ambleside. The county council, South Lakeland District, Copeland Borough and Allerdale Borough council have provided sites for charge points within car parks and parking areas, while t

Metric’s new compact parking terminal, the Sprite, will be on show at Parkex 2016. The pay & display machine, which was launched at Intertraffic 2016, is slimmer and shorter than the company’s Elite model. The Sprite can operate in a range of parking modes. It features a touch keypad that can include QWERTY keys for pay-by-plate and ANPR parking modes, as well other types of data capture. The keypad can also be designed with special characters to suit specific language requireme

Videalert will be demonstrating its automated school safety system at Parkex. The solution automates the enforcement of parking contraventions on ‘Keep clears’ and enables councils to promote a serious commitment to reducing the number of accidents involving children. The system has been deployed by councils such as the London boroughs of Barnet and Bromley, with others in the pipeline. Tim Daniels, Videalert’s sales and marketing director, said: “Automating the enforce

Parking machines in the Cornish fishing village of Mevagissey have been upgraded to provide an enhanced service to visitors. Cale UK has installed its web-enabled CWT-C payment terminals in the car park operated by the Mevagissey Harbour Trustees.  The CWT-C terminals have been installed in the harbour car park, which is the base for people who spend the day walking around the old village, visiting its shops and restaurants and watching the fisherman unload their catch. The Harbour Trust

Canterbury City Council in Kent is trialling ticketless parking using systems developed by Parkeon. The trial sees Canterbury become the first district in the UK to introduce Parkeon mobile and website payment options alongside the company’s MiniPark automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology.  MiniPark integrates ANPR cameras and barriers on car park entry and exit lanes.  In a first for Parkeon in the UK, the company’s Whoosh! app has been introduced alongside

A man who received a fine for not registering to park in a supermarket car park resorted to drawing a cartoon to prove he was a genuine customer. Teacher Steve Crowley received the £90 parking charge notice (PCN) after a visit to the Lidl store in the Gloucestershire town of Yate. The store had recently introduced a new parking system, managed by Athena ANPR. Shoppers receive 90 minutes free parking as long as they register their vehicles with the checkout staff. Crowley had not register

Heathrow Airport is equipping its Terminal 3 car park with a parking bay monitoring system that will guide drivers to available parking bays. Highlight Parking will be installing its Highlight Bay Monitoring and Baywatch Car Finder systems in the multi-storey, which provides around 1,500 short-stay parking spaces.  Highlight Bay Monitoring senses whether or not a bay is occupied and relays this information to drivers via indicator lights above the bays. The Baywatch Car Finder system ena

The Parkonomy.com payment platform has launched a mobile option branded Pay By Mobile. Parkonomy.com is using a multi-channel solution that integrates SMS text, interactive voice recognition (IVR) and payment channels. The company says Pay By Mobile completes its range of payment options, which includes payment in advance via a secure internet connection or via branded systems such as Barclays’ Pingit. Jim Harrow, Parkonomy.com’s head of business development, said: “Over 80% o

The London Borough of Enfield is updating the ANPR technology it uses to manage traffic congestion and for crime prevention. The Videalert ANPR system has been supplied as part of an ongoing contract with OpenView Security Solutions, the council’s provider of CCTV installation and support services. The Videalert system has been installed at eight locations, where it replaces NDI Recognition Systems equipment, and will be extended to a further 14 locations across the borough. The system

A desire to provide a consistent parking experience across two nearby shopping centre car parks in a South Wales town has prompted Queensbury Real Estates to specify the same pay-on-foot system at both sites. Queensbury opted to use the WPS ParkAdvance pay-on-foot system at the Kingsway and Friars Walk centres in Newport.  The Kingsway centre is a 1960s scheme that Queensbury acquired in 2014. It is served by 1,050 parking spaces. Nearby is Friars Walk, a retail and leisure complex that op

The way in which retailers operate their car parks needs to change, says British Land, a leading property company. David Tudor-Morgan, British Land’s head of retail property development, told delegates at Parking & Property 2016 that the model used to manage much retail parking was “somewhat broken”. “When you issue a parking ticket you have failed,” he said. Tudor-Morgan said there was no benefit in making parking difficult to access or in penalising motorist

A consensus is emerging for a single standards setting body for parking on private land, claims the British Parking Association following its Parking Summit, which was held in London on 11 May. The summit was called to facilitate a proper debate about the management parking on private land and to discuss the government’s response to its consultation regarding off-street parking issued in March 2015. Local go

Big data, mobile communications and social media will change both the automobile and the way in which we use them in the 21st Century, says a new report published by the British Parking Association (BPA). 20:20: Our vision for the future of parking summaries research commissioned by the BPA to explore the future of parking and intelligent mobility. The BPA intends the document to