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ANPR Parking

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Aictos

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Just wondering but what TOCs use this for their station car parks?

I am aware that Southern, Thameslink and Great Northern use it at some of their stations but what other TOCs use it?
 
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furnessvale

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Dangerous stuff. Whenever you pay for such parking ALWAYS enter your full reg number. Do not rely on the predictive text filling in the blanks for you. The machine will only record the digits YOU entered. Three weeks later you get a penalty notice saying you haven't paid.
 

Ianno87

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Dangerous stuff. Whenever you pay for such parking ALWAYS enter your full reg number. Do not rely on the predictive text filling in the blanks for you. The machine will only record the digits YOU entered. Three weeks later you get a penalty notice saying you haven't paid.

I was more put off by wewkend parking having rocketed from about £10 to £25 with the ANPR introduction!
 

thejuggler

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No need for system to be set up to maximise revenue from innocent mistakes from fake invoices.

I used a system last week and as soon as my reg was entered my car type and details were shown, just as when you enter reg on insurance websites.
 

Kite159

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No need for system to be set up to maximise revenue from innocent mistakes from fake invoices.

I used a system last week and as soon as my reg was entered my car type and details were shown, just as when you enter reg on insurance websites.

And of course the system will "accidentally" forget to save entries now and again to try and boost profits.
 

alistairlees

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And of course the system will "accidentally" forget to save entries now and again to try and boost profits.
No it won't. You need to get real. Mistakes can happen; they can / should be rectified so that neither party is worse off. But no-one is coding stuff like that; that's just rubbish.
 

Ken H

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And of course the system will "accidentally" forget to save entries now and again to try and boost profits.
hotels use ANPR for their car parks too. Dont let the receptionist say she will enter your details. do it yourself. I had a letter from the car park people demanding a shedload of cash cos the recep didnt do it. took some sorting out...

And I had trouble when I visited a shopping centre twice in a day. for some reason they missed me leaving the first time. so the computer assumed I had been there all day. Telling the shopping centre management I had been at work, where they have CCTV monitoring, stopped that one.
 

pitdiver

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I live near Harlington in Beds. We have ANPR in our stn car pk. Last year a number of locals had problems as the camera recording their exits wasn't working every day or it was being blocked by trees. This resulted in people being charged for parking there for a day or so because it was only picking up the exit on the following day. When they just dropping off their partner who was catching a train.
 
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bramling

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No it won't. You need to get real. Mistakes can happen; they can / should be rectified so that neither party is worse off. But no-one is coding stuff like that; that's just rubbish.

Ha!

Parking is a cowboy industry. At a location I know where there’s a staff car park inside the ANPR station car park there’s been no end of trouble going on for a good couple of years since the wretched cameras went in, staff getting penalty charge notices for parking in their own car park despite having correctly advised the parking contractor of their details and supposedly being whitelisted.

One disturbing thing is that even when they admit to issuing a notice in error, they still try the trick of offering to reduce the penalty to £10. The whole thing has attracted attention from quite senior level, especially after having been cited as a contributory factor in a safety-related train incident (driver’s break spent chasing up a spurious penalty notice and then being stressed when on the train due to the argument), yet still it goes on.

Then we’ve also had cars manually ticketed for occupying a designated staff bay, despite having a permit clearly and correctly displayed, or ticketed claiming the vehicle was straddling lines despite CCTV clearly showing otherwise. Again, the whole appeals process is designed to be as difficult and awkward as possible, and even when bang to rights they still try every possible trick not to cancel the incorrectly issued notices.

If I were government one of the first things I’d do is completely destroy and smash to shreds the parking industry. It’s one thing people choosing to drive into privately owned car parks and abiding by whatever terms, conditions or systems the owner wishes to run, however in my view this shouldn’t apply at railway stations which are de facto public property.
 
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Bletchleyite

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The irony is that it's totally in the power of the motorist to kill the lot off.

All it would take is every motorist being extra careful to park correctly (and appeal any incorrectly issued penalties) for about 2 months. The companies would get zero revenue and would collapse.

The typically selfish and misbehaving motorist brings them on themselves.
 

bramling

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The irony is that it's totally in the power of the motorist to kill the lot off.

All it would take is every motorist being extra careful to park correctly (and appeal any incorrectly issued penalties) for about 2 months. The companies would get zero revenue and would collapse.

The typically selfish and misbehaving motorist brings them on themselves.

Surely they’d still get the revenue from people paying to park, which they could use to offset any shortfall from not getting the penalty charge revenue by bumping up the tariffs?
 

Ken H

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if you cant park for a reasonable price at the station people will park in residential street. or maybe just drive and forget the train.
 

Ianno87

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WHAT!

Why the massive increase?

AIUI, unlike regulated fares, train companies can basically charge whatever they like for parking. Being Cambridge, there are plenty of people willing to pay such prices - the car park is still full. Although I suspect it might be 'premium' with Cambridge North being a little cheaper.

if you cant park for a reasonable price at the station people will park in residential street. or maybe just drive and forget the train.

I suspect at Cambridge weekend passengers will have been getting a nasty shock when they turn up of late...if you've got a train to catch you probably don't have much time to look elsewhere! Must leave a bit of a sour taste, especially now the weekend rate is higher than the weekday rate!
 

bussnapperwm

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It's craziness like this that allows big profits to the likes of Parking Lie (owned by Crapita).

Use your local council car park...at least they don't have ANPR (or use public transport to get to the station)
 

Bletchleyite

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Surely they’d still get the revenue from people paying to park, which they could use to offset any shortfall from not getting the penalty charge revenue by bumping up the tariffs?

Nowhere near it - particularly as a good quantity of that will go to the landowner. Their whole business model is based on "penalties". Essentially the model is basically "we will enforce for free if we get to keep the penalties".
 

Bletchleyite

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It's craziness like this that allows big profits to the likes of Parking Lie (owned by Crapita).

Use your local council car park...at least they don't have ANPR (or use public transport to get to the station)

There's nothing wrong with ANPR - it has many benefits, not least the ability to do pay on exit without needing a barrier and therefore staff on site. Pay on exit is the best parking system because it removes guesswork on how long you're staying and you can't accidentally overstay.

The thing that's wrong is these companies.
 

Kite159

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No it won't. You need to get real. Mistakes can happen; they can / should be rectified so that neither party is worse off. But no-one is coding stuff like that; that's just rubbish.

The Private Parking company (PPC) industry is like the wild west, with no effective regulation or protection for the motorists. Some motorists will get the letter demanding £100 or £60 within 14 days and they will pay it without thinking "hang on, I entered my number plate correctly so why are the vultures after money".

Even if challenged the person on the end of the phone will say "you didn't enter your number plate properly, you need to pay us money, or we will take you to court"

One of the PPCs got caught out a couple years ago when one of their staff was caught changing the time on the camera to make it appear cars were parked for longer than they actually were.

At the end of the day the PPCs exist solely to make money, having ANPR isn't car park management (it doesn't prevent a selfish person from parking in a disabled bay or boy-racers doing doughnuts)
 

mmh

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Nowhere near it - particularly as a good quantity of that will go to the landowner. Their whole business model is based on "penalties". Essentially the model is basically "we will enforce for free if we get to keep the penalties".

Exactly. If they weren't willing to pay the landowner a fee funded through penalties their revenue would be no more than the landowner could get doing it themselves, and there'd be no reason to outsource parking.
 

trentside

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LNER are using it at Newark North Gate and EMT have ANPR at Lincoln now, possibly a few others as well.
 

Bletchleyite

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Exactly. If they weren't willing to pay the landowner a fee funded through penalties their revenue would be no more than the landowner could get doing it themselves, and there'd be no reason to outsource parking.

Equally, there is a need for enforcement as people do have this little habit of getting very selfish and ignorant when they get behind the wheel of their car.

I think I would heavily regulate the industry - a statutory appeals body would be a good idea (as applies to Council fines), as well as a statutorily defined penalty (like PFs) and regulation of what restrictions can be imposed (for instance, I would ban "no return within" for ANPR-enforced car parks as it is unnecessary and catches a lot of people out - all you need is "you can park for a maximum of 3 hours per day total" at a supermarket to stop commuters parking there, and I would ban "no leaving site" because this causes unnecessary car journeys between adjacent sites - in practice people park randomly at each such site and so it gets distributed sensibly).
 

Peter Mugridge

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And I had trouble when I visited a shopping centre twice in a day. for some reason they missed me leaving the first time. so the computer assumed I had been there all day.

That's very common with supermarket car parks - multiple visits in any one 24 hour period often get treated from "first entry" to "last exit". The motoring section of the Daily Telegraph on Saturdays frequently carries complaints about this issue.
 

Bletchleyite

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That's very common with supermarket car parks - multiple visits in any one 24 hour period often get treated from "first entry" to "last exit". The motoring section of the Daily Telegraph on Saturdays frequently carries complaints about this issue.

This is caused by poor ANPR accuracy. The best short-term solution to this would be that you would have to enter your registration number at a console in the shop when you're about to leave, and in the event of the camera not catching the time you actually left this would have to be assumed to be when you did.

The sensible way to treat multiple visits is just to have a rule of "3 hours total maximum in any calendar day". "No return within" is idiotic for shops as you may have forgotten something and genuinely wish to return.
 

bramling

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Nowhere near it - particularly as a good quantity of that will go to the landowner. Their whole business model is based on "penalties". Essentially the model is basically "we will enforce for free if we get to keep the penalties".

I could be wrong on this, however I’ve got an idea that at the location I’m thinking of the parking company pays a sum for the task of “managing” the car park and they get to keep the returns. However this is only hearsay so I could be wrong on this...

To me it seems wrong to have a business based on penalties. Surely it would be preferable to design a model around no one being able to evade correct payment?! The railway should be rising above all this.

In the old days at the location I’m thinking of there was a simple automatic barrier at the exit where users put in a fee to get out. Apart from overstaying beyond one day, hard to evade payment and everyone knew where they stood.
 

Ken H

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Equally, there is a need for enforcement as people do have this little habit of getting very selfish and ignorant when they get behind the wheel of their car.

I think I would heavily regulate the industry - a statutory appeals body would be a good idea (as applies to Council fines), as well as a statutorily defined penalty (like PFs) and regulation of what restrictions can be imposed (for instance, I would ban "no return within" for ANPR-enforced car parks as it is unnecessary and catches a lot of people out - all you need is "you can park for a maximum of 3 hours per day total" at a supermarket to stop commuters parking there, and I would ban "no leaving site" because this causes unnecessary car journeys between adjacent sites - in practice people park randomly at each such site and so it gets distributed sensibly).
just have a 2 hour limit from 12:00 to 14:00. That will stop people parking all day. brum do that for on street closeish to the center
 

Ken H

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This is caused by poor ANPR accuracy. The best short-term solution to this would be that you would have to enter your registration number at a console in the shop when you're about to leave, and in the event of the camera not catching the time you actually left this would have to be assumed to be when you did.

The sensible way to treat multiple visits is just to have a rule of "3 hours total maximum in any calendar day". "No return within" is idiotic for shops as you may have forgotten something and genuinely wish to return.
an elderly couple went to Asda. They did a shedload of shopping, and being elderly, that took a fair while. Then they went for lunch in the supermarket cafe, and being elderly, that took a while too.
They were no too impressed when Asda sent them a bill for parking. Asda didnt care, they wanted their £60. Until their son put it on twitter and it trended there. Suddenly the parking bill evaporated.
 
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