Posted by admin pci,Thursday, April 08, 2010
The
oversight meant that an estimated $5 million in invalid infringements have been
issued since late 2004 at most major airports in Australia, including Sydney,
Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Gold Coast.
Whilst
the department says people should not expect refunds for unauthorised notices
that have already been paid, it admits that any outstanding fines could be
successfully disputed based on the defense that the notice was issued by an
unauthorised person.
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=53402&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The
system works by taking pictures of each vehicle’s number plate and recording
the time as it enters the car park. On exit, the system checks the number plate
and allows the car to exit under the free time limit of two hours. Cars staying
longer pay by entering their number plate at the pay station, or can register
their credit card details for automatic payments.
According
to Lane Cove Council this is the world’s first use of the technology.
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=53167&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Over
the past month, electric car promoter Better Place has announced that it
expects to start rolling out infrastructure to support electric cars in
Australia late next year. As PCI reported in August ’09, Canberra has been
earmarked as the first Australian city to receive the infrastructure, with a
national rollout to follow in 2012.
The
plan is to install recharging points in people’s garages, and other popular
parking spots, like airports. These would be supported by a network of battery
swapping stations for longer journeys.
There
are currently 51 different models of electric car scheduled to be in production
by 2012, and Better Place predicts that by 2020, 10-20% of Australia’s car
fleet will be powered by electricity.
But
what will the effects of these cars on the power grid? Green website TreeHugger published a report exploring what the effects of 1 million electric cars would
be to the US power grid. Their key conclusion is that it’s all a matter of
timing. If all of the vehicles were being recharged at the same time, the total
usage would be 8,785 megawatts – the equivalent
of about 3-4 big power plants. However, stagger this over a period of 12 hours
and the additional demand on the power grid would only be an additional 546
megawatts – about the size of a medium-sized power plant’s output.
In
support of this, a recent study published via TreeHugger claims that “plasma
TVs consume about four times the electricity needed to recharge a plug-in
hybrid. Yet utilities have managed to cope with the increased loads as thousands
of new televisions came on line.”
Electric
cars are coming! The infrastructure is planned, and the impact on our power
grid is likely to be minimal. If you’re a car park owner or operator, time to
start planning your recharging facilities!
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=53166&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Wednesday, March 31, 2010
On
March 22, Wollongong City Council introduced on-street ‘pay and display’
machines throughout the city centre. Motorists are charged a $2 flat fee to
park in half-hour, one-hour, or two-hour zones, no matter how long they stay in
the parking space. "Topping up" the meters is illegal and motorists
who overstay the time limit, whether or not they have a valid ticket, will be
fined.
Over
the course of the past week, PCI has followed reaction to the introduction of
the meters with interest. On first day of metered parking, some CBD streets were virtually deserted, and most had only a handful of parked cars scattered
along them.
There
were significantly fewer cars queuing at traffic lights or adding to congestion
along the CBD streets, supporting Wollongong City Council’s research,
estimating that at least 30 per cent of traffic in the city centre was
circulating in search of a parking space, while one third of timed on-street
spaces were occupied by all-day parkers.
Most
small businesses within the area seemed to feel that the introduction would
have a negative impact on their customers. However, when paid parking was first
introduced in Canberra, a similar downturn was only short-lived.
One
interesting approach adopted by the City Diggers Club has been the deployment
of Gold Coast-style ‘Meter Maids’, to help dampen the negative impact of paid
parking around the club. The maids
operated during the first three days of the meters’ introduction, to help
customers avoiding getting booked, and dispel confusion over the new parking
rules.
PCI
is fully supporting of the introduction of paid parking in the Wollongong area;
the greater availability of parking spaces and reduction in traffic and
congestion as a result are proof of this. However, the ‘flat rate’ parking
prices should perhaps be reviewed in the future in order to provide a greater
relation between cost and length of stay.
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=53165&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Wednesday, March 31, 2010
A
South Australian woman has accrued over $114,000 in parking fines in less than two years, heading the list of the State’s worst fine evader. An order has been
issued to suspend her license and restrict any business with the registrar of
motor vehicles in a bid to recover the funds.
South
Australia currently has over $205m in unpaid fines, of which over $25m are
overdue fines, and $75.5m are attributed to bad debts. The Courts
Administration Authority said it did not write off bad debts, but continued to
search for those who owe money.
Good Luck!
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=53164&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Wednesday, March 31, 2010
The
PCI office this week was ignited with water-cooler conversation about this video we were sent this week, of a magician performing a few amazing coin
tricks. No knowledge of Japanese is required!
Just
keep your eyes on those coins and while you watch consider whether your car
park revenue is being maximised. We hope you enjoy the Easter break.
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=53163&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Thursday, March 25, 2010
During
the past three months, Davis Langdon’s Construction Sentiment Index fell by a surprising
5 points to reach 61. Davis Langdon attributes the decline in the index to a
concerned property industry that is being impacted by a combination of planning
and industrial relations issues. According to David Langdon, this is
unexpected, and suggests a high degree of concern by respondents about the real
rate of recovery in the construction industry.
•
a 9% leap in skills shortages
•
the civil and resource sector is the most likely to contribute to growth in
upcoming months
•
concern over industrial relations is rife
•
the planning process has knocked the wind from sentiment recovery
•
obtaining finance continues to be the biggest obstacle in the building
development process
Whilst
the survey points to a number of concern areas, it also points to a drop in
confidence within the industry, questioning whether the private sector will be
able to step up to the mark and takeover when the supply of Government-funded
stimulus projects dry up. View the full report here.
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=52965&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Thursday, March 25, 2010
As
supporters of the ‘Shoupian’ theories of parking pricing (increasing the cost
of on-street parking, reducing demand, creating parking for those prepared to
pay for it, and investing the money directly into the community from which it
is raised), PCI is very excited to see Professor Shoup coming to speak in
Australia.
The
Australian Parking Convention is currently seeking qualified speakers to
include in the technical program. From the APC website, they are calling for
‘qualified speakers with real life experiences and case studies that you would
like to share with other industry professionals (specific industries such as universities,
airports, shopping centres and on street). If you are interested, you can
contact the convention here.
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=52964&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Thursday, March 25, 2010
This
week, Parking Consultants International spoke with Ismo Husu, from the Parking
Services department of the City of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada.
The
City of Victoria has recently installed a new on-street parking system, based
on a pay-by-space principle. Ismo explained to us: “The users can keep their receipt that gives the expiry time. When the
time expires they could purchase more time at any machine in the city by
entering the space number they are parked in - it is indicated on the receipt
as well. We also offer a chip value card that charges them for the maximum
amount of time allowed when they log in and refunds unused time when they log off.
It has been very popular.”
There
are other advantages to the system as well. The meters will not start charging
until the pay parking period begins – but allow you to pay prior to the period
commencing.
Users
can use any of the 270 pay stations across the city; enabling users to purchase more time from any of the pay stations, just by entering your bay
number – printed on the receipt of the ticket. These 270 pay stations have
replaced around 1,800 meters, often the inefficient and outdated coin-operated models.
As
noted by Ismo, the system allows users to reclaim any unused money if the meter
has not expired when they return to their vehicles, through a city pay park
card – refunding based only on the time they have used.
It
seems like the City of Victoria’s approach, in developing a system that is designed from the consumer
perspective, makes a lot of sense.
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=52963&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Posted by admin pci,Thursday, March 25, 2010
In
a timely follow up to last week’s post ‘The benefits of the bicycle’, John Pucher,
a US academic from Rutgers University in New Jersey, says that Sydney is one of
the world’s most hostile cities for cycling. Prior to publishing a paper in the
Journal of Transport Geography, Dr
Pucher claims that Sydney motorists exhibit a high level of aggression and
hostility towards cyclists on the road.
The
paper compares cycling in Sydney and Melbourne and find that twice as many
trips are made by bicycle in Melbourne as Sydney, with the rate of trips in
Melbourne growing at three times that of Sydney. Dr Pucher says that “Melbourne's
flatter terrain and lower rainfall alone do not explain why in hilly San
Francisco the percentage of trips by bike has grown to 2.5 per cent, 3½ times
Sydney's rate of 0.7 per cent.”
“More
significant than topography is reducing aggression among motorists. Making
cyclists, especially female cyclists, feel safer, is a job Melbourne has done
much better than Sydney. Dr Pucher says women are a litmus test for cycling
safety as many will ride only if they feel safe. Twenty-five per cent of
commuting cyclists in Melbourne are women, but only 17 per cent in Sydney. In
Denmark the figure is 45 per cent and in the Netherlands 55 per cent.”
It
is not all bad news, however, with the City of Sydney spending $76 million on a
20 kilometre network of bike lanes. But it sounds as though Sydney, and even
the rest of Australia has a long way to go to catch up to the rest of the world.
- Trackback Link
- http://parkingconsultants.com/BlogRetrieve.aspx?BlogID=419&PostID=52961&A=Trackback
- Trackbacks
- Post has no trackbacks.
Post a Comment (0) | Trackbacks (0)
____________________________
Comments