Parking World

Do They Wonder Why People Hate Them?

Fellow is handicapped. Has a handicapped placard. It allows him to park virtually anywhere in the UK, even in no parking zones. He goes to the store, parks out front since the handicapped spots in a nearby lot are 100 yards away at the other end of the lot, shops, comes out and there is a ticket on his car. Fast forward to his conversation with the local parking folks.

A council spokeswoman said the Birstall car park pre-dated the Tesco Express store, hence the disabled bays were located at the opposite end. She added: "All vehicles in this car park must park in clearly marked bays and this motorist did not do so."

And rules are rules. MS suffers must follow them just as does the local footballer. Was this the same woman who said, after being arrested for throwing a live cat in a covered trash can: "I can't see what all the fuss is about, it's only a cat?"

Here was a perfect opportunity, missed as usual by parking bureaucrats in the UK, to make a positive headline. First, void the ticket. Second, send someone out with some paint and move the handicapped spots near the front of the store. Third call the local newspaper and get some good PR.

JVH

State of the Union

While investigating my August 23 blog about US parking lots that do not allow foreign cars, I stumbled on a controversy that has been going on in the media this month.

Kansas City Business Journal reporter James Dornbrook was kicked out of a UAW parking lot on July 15 while covering Missouri Governor Jay Nixon's signing ceremony for the Missouri Automotive Manufacturing Jobs Act. The reason for the ejection – he was driving a Toyota.

.Read Dornbrook's blog here:

I don't think the reporter expected to receive a personal response from UAW President Bob King, who sent a letter which was also posted on the UAW site.

While King makes some interesting points, Dornbrook's response shows that an across-the-lot ban on foreign cars should probably be examined more carefully.

Pete Goldin

Get a Parking Space…THEN Buy the Car

A region in India has begun a program of requiring those purchasing cars prove they have a parking space before the car can be licensed. Read about it here. This is not a new idea, China has been using the idea for a number of years. Even so, they have a 60 mile long traffic jam outside Beijing. It's a way to limit the purchase of vehicles. It also ensures that only a certain "class" of person can acquire a vehicle. If you have to have a parking spot, you probably also own a house or a business. Seems a bit elitist.

My suggestion is that the government could relax its regulations and assist the private sector in building parking facilities. I understand that this is a chicken or egg kind of thing, but if you are going to require a parking space, and cars are popular, then the business of building parking spaces would seem to be booming. To "jump start" it, the government might fast track the permit process for garages, loosen the zoning requirements, and be certain the inspection process is quick and fair. I'll bet that investment money would flow into parking facilities.

Of course if the idea is to keep the number of cars under control in the world's second largest country, then the opposite approach might be effective.

JVH

Someone Agrees with JVH – Hospital Parking

I'm honored to be quoted and to have this blog links at Paul Barter's "Reinventing Parking" blog. Paul is an academic, living and teaching in Singapore, and has studied and researched urban issues, including parking throughout the far East. Paul comments in part:

Can you imagine a parking policy in which we do NOT expect hospitals to subsidize parking in general? Can you imagine not expecting universities or schools or park agencies or any building managers to do so? Under such a parking policy, we would expect both onsite and off-site parking to be run as a business with maximising revenue as the primary objective. This would be best done by professionals whose core business and mission is parking, not health.

Would this mean a lack of compassion for patients and their families? I don't see why.

Read all of his excellent post here.

JVH

Pete Responds – JVH Not a Visigoth, just lacks Humanity

Here is Pete's reply to my comments on his National Health Service concerns about "free" parking. JVH

In response to your blog below "Pete Takes a Swing at JVH" I have just now realized how futile that endeavor truly is. But I would never call my editor a Visigoth in print, even if I thought he was one.

Although many of your comments obviously make sense, you are looking at the issues from an American perspective, as is your right. As the Technology Editor of Parking World, I have to take a higher level global view, however – a citizen of the world.

All of your arguments are against the premise that universal healthcare is based on. While I do agree that there can still be debate on this topic in the US, the debate is already over in the UK. They have chosen universal healthcare, and in my opinion we have to look at it from a UK perspective. Since you are against universal healthcare, it makes sense that you oppose subsidized parking for UK hospitals. Since they already have universal healthcare, however, it seems absurd to me that they would not treat healthcare parking in the same manner as the healthcare services themselves.

The reason I claimed that my response was in the queue was not that you are predictable – I was actually surprised by how hard you continue to fight against the poor and unfortunate. (That last one was just a joke, please do not quote that line in your next blog). It was just because I had some commentary from others, even people you respect, that agree this is a matter of compassion.

"We are strongly opposed to hospital car parking charges being re-introduced in Scotland and Wales," says Mike Hobday, Head of Campaigns at Macmillan Cancer Support, in reference to the BPA's Master Plan for Parking. "This would be an enormously retrograde step. Charging vulnerable cancer patients while they are at hospital receiving life-saving treatment causes financial hardship and needless distress and is nothing more than a tax on illness. The BPA needs to remember who hospitals were built to serve."

Also, to quote the esteemed correspondent Peter Guest in Parking Today's June 2010 issue, "Chronically ill people are often unable to work, and if they have to attend hospital several times a week, the charge could simply be unaffordable to someone surviving on a small disability allowance. Similarly, hospitals were asked to use both common sense and a little basic humanity when dealing with those who are visiting seriously or terminally ill patients. The last thing someone needs having sat with a dying relative is to find that they have to pay a big parking charge or indeed even a fine."

To me, the key word is: humanity.

But we are looking at it from two totally different perspectives – US vs. UK. Shall we say: agree to disagree?

Pete Goldin

Actually, Pete, we can't. Just because someone has a "different perspective" doesn't make them right. It may mean that they are standing in the wrong place. The debate may be over but it's pretty certain that the problems still exist. So let's just talk about parking, and put the issue of "National Health Service" on hold for the moment.

First a comment from another "citizen of the world," Paul Barter, parking and urban planning expert who lives in Singapore:

I am with JVH and the BPA on this one. Here is another way to think about it. What is the core 'mission' of the NHS? Surely the purpose of the NHS is health and medicine, not transport and certainly not parking. Providing a travel allowance to a small proportion of clients, such as chronically ill patients and their care givers, can be justified as in line with the mission. Some of the recipients would use such an allowance to help with their parking costs, if they drive. However, providing free-of-charge parking for all visitors and all staff at hospitals, paid for from the NHS budget, seems to me to be way outside the mission and a misuse of taxpayer's money. After all, NHS does not pay for anyone's bus tickets or taxi fares does it?

PB

Compassion has limits, too. If we "issue" equal parts of compassion to everyone on the planet, how can we possibly keep up? If we see "free parking" as compassion, where does it stop. Paul is correct that certainly complimentary parking can be given, out of compassion if you will, to those in need. However to simply give it to everyone out of hand means that we are going to run out and no one will be able to park. My disabled parker issue is a classic example – out of compassion we gave "Free" parking to the disabled, and now the disabled have no place to park.

Here in our insular America most urban hospitals charge for parking, the inhuman curs. However they also, in many cases, as Paul points out above, have a validation program so that those in need (cancer patients on chemo, visitors to the dying, etc) can get their parking "free." Most people pay, but those who have a need, don't.

How do we take a limited resource, parking, and allocate it fairly. Should a doctor be "guaranteed" a space, what about an ER nurse. There are only 1000 spaces but 1500 people need to park. How do we control the situation? When you give something away "free" people flock to use it, even when they don't need it. Your compassionate buddy at Macmillain Cancer Support simply wants parking for free. He has no solution to the larger problem of how to control parking and how to pay for the parking structures. His compassion is blinding him to reality and frankly he doesn't really care. He has a compassionate goal, the rest of the world be damned.

Peter is right, too. Bureaucracies that are built in the "citizen of the world" land are typically "all or nothing." Its "free" or you pay. No middle ground – it wouldn't be "fair." Someone would have to make a decision as to who gets free parking and who doesn't and of course if you didn't "choose wisely" you could be accused of being uncompassionate, like me, and no one wants that.

We can never do things with common sense, as Peter requests. If we did, we would help those who truly need, and support those who can make it on their own. But then, as Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Iceland, Finland, and the rest slowly sink into anarchy, they can always say – at least they were compassionate.

JVH

 

 

Pete Takes a Swing at JVH

He threw down the gauntlet in the post just below (Civilized Society) You can read my response and then his response which he claims he already has written (I'm so predictable.)

Sorry Pete, but fair is fair – I don't believe that the government should provide services to some, but tax all the same for them. We should be able to decide if we want to pay for health care, and then get what we pay for. Why should the young pay the same amount us old foggies pay, when I see a doctor every three months and they see one every three years. (They should buy very cheap catastrophic insurance and then change as they need to.) Ok, we'll continue that argument another time, but it's germane to this one

You would have every service that provides something from the government have "free" parking. Does this mean that the Hollywood Bowl, which has a grant, a very large grant, from LA County, should provide "free" parking. How about when I visit city hall, watch the Dodgers play or in fact, go to UCLA, or the County Fair? What the hell, how about the Beach? The county pays to keep it clean, life guards, and the rest. Why not free parking there?

Feeling sorry for the sick doesn't make them better. Providing free parking doesn't help either. Check out what happened when we gave free parking to disabled parkers. Suddenly there was no parking for disabled; the spaces were stolen by cheats who used bogus permits to park for free. Exactly the same thing happened at hospitals in the UK, particularly in urban centers. Free parking was taken by locals who were visiting the high street stores, and there was no room for doctors, staff, or patients. In some cases ambulances couldn't get to the ER because of cars parked "free" everywhere.

Solve the problem by charging for parking. It's difficult for me to believe that parking costs are so onerous that someone owning a $25000 car paying all the road taxes and $6 a gallon gas and insurance can't afford to park it when they go to the doctor. Who knows, maybe if they charged to park, they could afford to lower the taxes in the UK. If they took the money from the parking and provided better parking service, perhaps a coffee bar in the lobby of the hospital, maybe a lady with a cart bringing tea around, and told everyone this service was paid by parking, I'll bet the folks in the UK would say it was a great idea. However they take the money and suck it into that gaping maw known as the general fund and it's never seen again.

When you charge for something, people think about whether to use it or not. If you charge to park, some may decide to car pool, or take the bus, or whatever. If there is a horrible problem, the hospital can elect, on a case by case basis, to help. It's called charity, and we do it all the time. I just don't understand why this is such a big deal, but I'm sure you will tell me.

Oh, as for me being a Visigoth and you being 'civilized,' I guess one has to begin to understand just what 'civilized' means. By my definition, it means that each person is required by society to work and provide for him or herself. If they cannot, for whatever reason, it is society's responsibility to help out, just as private Americans and companies do to the tune of billions every day.

It means that if I work hard, and study hard, and focus my energies, I can do most anything. The only responsibility of the state is to stay out of my way. The moment they step between me and my customers, employees, vendors, neighbors, and the like, they begin to make it, bit by bit, more difficult for me to do what I need to do.

Come off it, of course we needs laws and courts, but we also need common sense. The goal has to be to do the LEAST required to allow me to succeed, not the most. It's the "urban elite" that believes that they know more than I as to how to live and where I should drive, and how much I should pay to park. If you think they do such a good job, take a look at the urban cores of most of our cities.

As for free parking, it isn't free, and yes, as you said, everyone pays. I just say that only those that use the parking should pay, just like those that go to a ball game, or a concert, or visit city hall.

JVH

Civilized Society

Note to my Editor, John Van Horn: Regarding the UK healthcare debate blog from August 3, I understand that there is no such thing as free parking. Someone has to pay. The question is always: who? I agree that is usually the user's responsibility, but in the case of healthcare, I suggest that should not always apply.

You use the argument that if 1,000 people use the hospital but only 100 park, then it is not fair because the thousand are paying for the hundred to park. Although that applies to most parking situations, I do not think that model applies to a universal healthcare environment such as the UK, because the thousand are not paying directly for the hospital services. They are paying through their taxes, just like every other UK citizen.

If allowing people to get free parking at the hospital is unfair, then so is the entire UK healthcare system, which works exactly the same way - everyone in the country is paying for the healthcare system but only a certain percentage are taking full advantage of the services. In my opinion, this is the mark of a civilized society, although I realize there are many problems with universal healthcare – that is another debate.

But if one accepts the validity of the universal healthcare concept, the parking could be considered part of the package. In this particular case, if the entire country is paying for people with illnesses to get free healthcare, as a matter of social responsibility, why can't they spring for the parking as well?

Pete Goldin

Stamping Out Clamping

Having blogged several times in favor of stronger controls on private car park operators in the UK, I can't believe I am taking the opposing side today, but I must agree with the British Parking Association that the UK government has gone too far with the announcement on August 17 that they are completely banning clamping on private land.

It is ironic that the ban announcement follows so quickly after BPA's July publication of its Master Plan for Parking which called for a "regulated environment which is fair to both operator and motorist and meets the needs of landowners who have a right to protect their land."

The ban will be included in the Freedom Bill in November, and is expected to be in place early next year. Once the ban is in effect, anyone clamping or towing a vehicle on private land will face stiff fines or possible jail time.

"The government is committed to ending the menace of rogue private sector wheel-clampers once and for all," says Home Office Minister Lynne Featherstone. "For too long motorists have fallen victim to unscrupulous tactics by many clamping firms. Reports of motorists being marched to cash points or left stranded after their car has been towed are simply unacceptable. A ban on clamping and towing on private land will end this abuse and companies who decide to flout new laws will face severe penalties."

"The rules governing parking on private land should be proportionate and should not result in motorists being intimidated or forced to pay excessive fines," adds Regional and Local Transport Minister Norman Baker. "Cowboy clampers have had ample opportunity to mend their ways but the cases of bullying and extortion persist. That is why we are putting an end to these outrageous practices once and for all to ensure that drivers no longer have to fear intimidation from rogue traders, allowing the parking industry to begin to restore its reputation with the motoring public."

On the one side, many UK drivers will be very happy with this turn of events.

"This announcement will be cheered by motorists throughout the country - and particularly by those in the Royal Borough who have found themselves charged hundreds of pounds to get their car back, often for something as simple as parking slightly over a parking space line or being a few minutes late," says Councillor Phillip Bicknell of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

But rather than make the situation more equitable, the move seems to simply shift all advantage to the motorist and leave the private parking operator with little recourse.

"We have long lobbied for better regulation of the private parking sector, including clamping," states Patrick Troy – Chief Executive of BPA. "We want to see higher operator standards and a fairer deal for motorists when they fall foul of the rules. We are concerned however that banning clamping removes any incentive to follow the rules."

"Clamping provides a last resort to landowners, who are faced with persistent offenders and ticket evaders," he continues. "The Government must be accountable for protecting landowners' interests if ticketing is ineffective and drivers continue to park unlawfully."

"The Government's plans are a charter for the selfish parker," he adds. "We urge the Home Office to tightly regulate the private parking sector, instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

 

Pete Goldin

The Un-American Way

I have come across many different types of parking rules and regulations while writing for Parking World but this is the first time I have seen parking restrictions based on the vehicle's country of origin – showcased in this enlightening photo gallery posted by Edward Niedermeyer Editor-In-Chief of The Truth About Cars:

www.thetruthaboutcars.com/bonus-gallery-no-foreign-parking-signs/

The signs are mostly from US auto manufacturer facilities, and they seem to be designed to punish any worker who is not buying American, presumably because they are either unpatriotic or not supporting their employer. I wonder if Kraft has a ban on brie and gouda in the company lunchroom?

Pete Goldin

Request for PCI DSS

By now you have probably heard about the highly publicized credit card scam that hit Auckland's Downtown parking lot, covered in the June 2010 issue of Parking World. Impacting more than 100,000 credit cards, the incident was a sobering reminder that parking facilities should adhere to PCI DSS, the PCI Security Standards Council's rules for protecting cardholder data.

The latest development in this story is actually good news. On July 16, Auckland City Council's Parking Group issued an RFP with the unassuming title "Replacement of Car Park Operating Equipment and Software" and a primary goal of PCI DSS compliance.

I had always assumed that Auckland's previous parking system was not PCI DSS compliant but I never got a definitive response from the Auckland City Council on that one point. The RFP finally proves my theory was correct, as it states, "Following a recent incident of credit card fraud, it was discovered that the credit card processing software at the Automatic Payment Machines (APMs) in the car parks does not comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), which is a required standard for any payment system that incorporates a credit card payment option."

The Council's goals stated in the RFP include ensuring that "all car park buildings are PCI DSS compliant by procuring the latest equipment and implementing appropriate management procedures" and they are looking for "state-of-the-art technology for payment and operation of the car park buildings that is PCI-DSS compliant and is capable of maintaining compliance throughout the equipment and software's lifespan."

Since the previous equipment was also outdated, Auckland is also looking for a number of other features including a range of payment options, CCTV security, real-time management reporting and enhanced performance analysis. This is an entire overhaul of the city's parking system.

The Parking Group of Auckland City Council is responsible for the payment and operating equipment in the four CBD car park buildings at Downtown, Civic, Victoria St. and Karangahape Rd.

For the vendors out there, RFP number 30341 can be found on the Government Electronic Tender Service: www.gets.govt.nz

The RFP closing date is August 16, and contract commencement is expected by the end of September.

Pete Goldin