We have come across another article on the Sydney parking levy, this one published by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

With the parking industry saying that there are no studies that validate the claim that the additional tax will ease congestion, which is the claimed rationale from the Government behind the tax rise, the Government is standing firm, saying that it is a tool to encourage public transport growth.

They claim that the additional revenue will be invested back into "…developing commuter car parks across the Sydney Metropolitan area, the Central Coast and in parts of the Illawarra”, and that the levy is “…a valuable tool in providing funding for some of the infrastructures required for public transport."

The full article, with an audio interview, can be viewed on the ABC site, “Sydney parking hike 'a tax grab'."

Colliers International have just released their Global CBD Parking Rate Survey for 2009. The survey, which tracks 140 downtown parking districts around the world, found that Australia's capital cities ranked among the most expensive places in the world to park. Sydney, Brisbane and Perth again all ranked in the top 10 cities globally for the most expensive median monthly parking rates.

Parking in Australia's cities have generally held steady over the past year with some cities even recording increases including Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. Sydney and Melbourne both saw decreases in their median monthly parking rates reflecting rising unemployment but increased part-time employment which has impacted on demand for monthly parking. Sydney is now the fifth most expensive city in the world to park, and with the introduction of the NSW car parking levy this month, it will now become even more expensive to park your car.

View Global CBD Parking Rate Survey for 2009.

Reproduced courtesy of Colliers International.

This art project, ‘Color Coordinated Parking’ conducted at California’s Southwestern College in 1994, sorted over 3,000 cars into parking lots determined by the colour of the vehicle.

It’s a brilliant conceptual idea as well as a potentially useful marketing tool… but would it help you find where you parked your white Toyota Corolla in a sea of other white cars? 

Sourced from Parking World’s blog, the article 'Parking remains attractive for investors' explores some of the key things that make a car park an attractive investment. According to the article, authored by Macquarie Group, three characteristics have a meaningful impact on the attractiveness to potential investors:

• Demonstrated ability to retain locations and grow the portfolio
• Appropriate balance of leases and management agreements
• Proven management team

Whilst this is authored from a US perspective, it provides useful information for any owners and operators looking to strengthen their investment. A key theme seems to be emerging in that the value of car parks remains relatively stable, especially in the longer term. For more information on the pricing values on car parking in Australia, you can view our post, 'Car park values remain strong', from June 3.

View 'Parking remains attractive for investors' here. 

We have spent a lot of time over the past few months talking about themaximisation of revenue from car parks. As everyone is all too aware, thesetimes call for improved systems and monitoring to ensure that all assets areperforming as well as they can be.

‘Is Revenue Control An Oxymoron’ is an article published by Dennis Cunning (Certified Administrator of Public Parking by IPI/University ofVirginia in the United States) that explores how the owner’s choice ofequipment and operator, as well as the degree to which he/she maintains anactive role in the management of the car parks will determine the extent towhich revenue will be collected and reported.

It’s an incredibly useful resource and something that I am sure you willfind applicable to many types of business models. Read ‘Is Revenue Control An Oxymoron' here.

There have been a lot of articles that have come to our attention this week about conflicts between parking inspectors, doing their job by the rule book, and affected and perturbed residents and car parkers, saying that ruling by the ‘letter of the law’ without any consideration for circumstance is unreasonable. We’ve found three interesting articles this week that all explore the topic.

1.    The first example comes from Exeter in the UK, where a heavily pregnant woman was given a ticket for parking in a space designated for people with children. She was told that “until her baby was born, it was not classed as a baby”, meaning that she illegally parked in the designated zone. Read the full article; 'Pregnant woman ticketed for parent parking'.

2.    The second also comes from the UK, in Lambeth, South London. A sewerage flood in a residential road during the week meant that many flats were submerged in effluent, and roadworks have been in place since, meaning that residents have had no parking spaces, instead parking in the middle of the road. Parking inspectors have attempted several times to ticket the vehicles, and when a tow-truck arrived to remove one of the vehicles, the residents swung into action, blocking the tow-truck with their vehicles until the police arrived. The police promptly told the tow-truck operators to release the car immediately. Victory for the people! Read the full article; ‘People power wins parking fight’.

3.    The third example comes from closer to home, from the Gold Coast in Queensland. Councillors have apparently instructed the parking inspectors to turn a blind eye and show leniency to some infringements. Whilst in many cases this is driven by unclear laws that are currently being reviewed, the instruction of councillors to the parking inspectors to issue warning letters in place of fines for areas known for serious lack of parking, or to issue fines only when the parking infringement is a serious safety issue, is a departure from our first two examples! Read the full article; ‘Car parking blind eye’.

Whilst this happened in December, it’s only just come to the attention of the PCI blog, and a watch out for festive season shopping parking rushes.

In this event in the USA, people parking their cars were directed to a piece of vacant land, where the attendant (one of several, with yellow wands, vests and money aprons) took a fee and directed them to a parking spot.

On returning to their vehicle several hours later, parkers found that not only had they parked illegally, but they had been issued with a ticket!

Full the full story; Parking con has few parallels.

We came across an article this week, written by Kevin Moore, CEO of Crossmark Australia, which talks about the experience of retail shopping. It draws upon Paco Underhill’s latest book, The Call of the Mall, which presents the concept of “retail theatre”.

In the article, 'Shopping should start in the carpark', Moore discusses car manufacturer Peugeot’s Blue Box concept; a re-branding and retail design project which is designed to be as emotionally alluring as aesthetically stunning; giving consumers a true feel of the design principles underlying the brand before they even walk into the dealership, or get into a car for a test drive. 

London, as one of the most urbanised and populated cities in the world, continues to face an increasing number of cars in use on the roads, with relatively little or no additional availability of parking. The number of registered cars in the city has increased by 10% to 2.6 million vehicles in just the last decade.

‘A patchwork of permits’ is a study conducted by John Siraut in London, analysing the various local council schemes developed to administer resident parking schemes and controlled parking zones implemented across London.

An overview and summary of the article is available online, called ‘A patchwork of permits', and is a useful resource for council and government urban planners, as well as a source of some valuable learnings from a city grappling with significant demand for parking spaces. 

The World Parking Symposium commenced on Wednesday (24 June 2009) in Breda, the Netherlands. Our Managing Partner, Cristina Lynn will be attending several events at the conference and also delivering a presentation on the benefits of parking guidance systems. We will be publishing her presentation for our blog subscribers in due course, so watch this space!

Whilst at the conference, she will be collecting global best-practice examples from Parking Industry colleagues and meeting senior administrators, technologists, researchers and consultants involved in parking policy development.