Under current regulations, in lieu of providing their quota of car parks required for new proposals, developers may choose to make a financial contribution to the Port Adelaide Centre Car Parking fund. According to AdelaideNow.com.au, revenue raised by this fund goes towards upgrading or building new car parks in the area.

As it stands, developers must pay $7200 for every carpark they are short of their quota, however under the new plan this will be slashed to $720. More information on the council's car parking fund can be found on the City of Port Adelaide Enfield site here.

Councillor Bruce Johansen, who moved the motion to lower the charge, said the previous fee was too expensive, and deterred business owners from coming to the Port.

Initially the policy was implemented to penalise businesses who did not adequately cover their parking requirements, but it has had the unintended impact of frightening away small business owners, who are evidently taking their investment elsewhere.

Not all city officials agree with the move, with city council CEO Harry Weirda saying that the fund was a good instrument to help encourage or deter development, but at $720 the impact would be watered down. Cr Johansen disagrees with Mr Weirda saying each proposal should stand on its own merits.

New York City has scrapped a controversial plan to privatise its street-parking management system. The concept was designed to help ease the financial position of the city by generating a steady revenue stream under a leasing arrangement with the private sector, according to the Wall Street Journal.

However opposition to the plan was strong, citing a similar move by Chicago in 2008 which reportedly resulted in a four-fold increase in parking levies and a deal which saw the city short-changed by an under-valued contract agreement.

According to BizJournals.com, there is also concern stemming from the Chicago case study about confusing enforcement policies regarding handicapped spaces as well as road closures during public events.

While other US cities such as Cincinnati have decided to move ahead with their own version of the plan, in the face of the public outcry, NYC’s Department of Transportation has instead decided to proceed with a “meter-modernization” strategy making their own collection strategy more efficient.

However New York’s privatisation plan is not dead and buried, with a spokeswoman for the mayor saying, "in order to proceed with this venture, a private operator would have to demonstrate that they could significantly improve on the city's financial and operational performance."

In November, we reported that the cost of property prices for car parks in Hong Kong was going through the roof, following the introduction of measures from the government to cool the cost of property prices.

Car parking spaces are now selling for more than some homes, with AU$276,000 being paid for a space in November; another sold for US$385,000 in March. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, two spaces in the commercial district were recently offered $US640,000 per space.

Home prices have nearly doubled since early 2009, driven largely by wealthy buyers from mainland China. A typical 55-square-metre apartment now costs about $US577,000, with prices soaring into the millions in parts of Hong Kong Island, the city's commercial and financial centre.

Last year the government introduced curbs aimed at property speculators. Starting in late October, a 15 per cent stamp duty was levied on sales to non-permanent Hong Kong residents. A tax of 20 per cent was imposed on properties resold within six months of purchase, according to the LA Times. 

2013 appears to be a big year for ‘driver assist’ technology,

Audi has presented its self-parking technology, allowing drivers to press a button and summon their car. This would require building technology into parking structures, according to Detroit News. Audi was the first US automaker to earn a permit to test autonomous vehicles on the roads and the second company overall, behind Google.

Mercedes, meanwhile, is claiming that they will have a self-driving car available by the end of this year. The car will initially be able to handle low-speed manoeuvres, parking, and queuing in stop-and-go situations; but will eventually move into fully autonomous driving, capable of handling highway speeds.

The biggest barrier for the self-driving cars is road authorities, which have not allowed the use of self-driven cars on the roads except for testing purposes. In Australia, Victorian road safety authorities support the concept as a way to cut accidents, but authorities elsewhere have thrown up a roadblock.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Transport for NSW has labelled the technology ''a major risk to road users'', but New South Wales Roads Minister Duncan Gay joined his Victorian counterpart in supporting the technology, if motorists could quickly regain control of the vehicle.

Lauchlan McIntosh, chairman of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program, said Australian Design Rules had been rewritten to allow the use of autonomous emergency braking and that the Department of Infrastructure and Transport must revise its requirements to allow the high-tech cars on public roads.

During our recent visit to the South American capital, we were able to witness the operation of a payment by e-tag in a large shopping centre car park. The system has been recently installed and the owner is expecting that use will increase very fast from a currently low 2% to around 40% of transactions.

The agreement with the state controlled provider of the tags for payment on the country’s highways took a long time to complete; now, tag users can enter and exit the car park without the need to take a ticket or attend a paystation at the end of their stay. A set of cameras located at each entry point reads the customer’s number plate and if it recognises it as an approved tag holder, the boomgates rise (otherwise a ticket is issued). On exit, the cameras once again read the number plate and the system debits the cost of the parking to the customer’s tag account. Easy!

Below are a few photos. During the initial month of use, customers who signed up were offered discounted parking (50%) but the owner is not anticipating any special discounts going forward.

The NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell announced last month plans to refurbish the convention, exhibition and entertainment precinct in Darling Harbour.

The upgrade will see the area boast Australia’s largest convention and exhibition facilities, Sydney’s largest red carpet entertainment venue and a hotel complex of up to 900 rooms. A new urban neighbourhood in Haymarket will be part of one of the most exciting urban renewal projects the city has ever seen, according to a press release from NSW Government.

The preferred bidder is a consortium called Destination Sydney, comprising AEG Ogden, Lend Lease, Capella Capital and Spotless. The facilities and the upgrade of the public domain at Darling Harbour will cost about $1 billion.

The existing car parks on the western side of Darling Harbour will be demolished to make way for the urban neighbourhood, home to high-tech businesses, apartments, student accommodation, shops, cafes and restaurants.

A video fly-over of the new development is available below, and for more information you can read the NSW Premier’s press release here, or the Business Events Sydney website here. 

The New York City Transportation Department announced last week the replacement of more than 6,000 parking signs with an easier-to-follow design.

According to the NYTimes, key changes include “more breathing room” (white space), eliminating a colour (blue), and reducing the number of characters needed to explain the rules to a Twitter-friendly 140 (from 250).

The new format displays more prominently the length of time for which parking is allowed, setting the information off in large type inside a box in the upper left corner. The previous opening line on the sign - “No Standing” - has been moved to the middle of the new layout. Beyond the added white space, the department said the new signs, created in a partnership with Pentagram Design, were more readable because they included mixed cases and skinnier arrows, making them easier for the eye to scan.