Text parking on trial
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The days of rushing out to feed the meter may soon be over, at least that's according to Westminster Council who, for the past few years, have been piloting a new way to pay for your parking, Pay-by-Phone.
All you need is your mobile phone and a bank card. You simply sign up, text or phone in your location and type in how long you want to stay and the payment comes straight out of your account.
Not only does it sound easy but it also seems like a good idea, right? Well not quite - it seems to be driving some of you mad.
Tickets and fines
Lisa Cooper registered her family's business cars to the pay-by-phone system to help alleviate the extra stress of having to carry lots of change. Unfortunately, it was nothing but a headache when her mum nipped out to the shops in one of the cars.
Lisa's mum had parked and paid using her mobile phone, she even received a confirmation text to thank her for paying. Happy that all was well she headed out to the shops, returning a few hours later to find, to her horror, a parking fine for £40.
Lisa immediately contested the charge, only to be told by Westminster Council that they had no record of any payment. It was only when she sent in her bank statement, to prove her mother had paid, that the council finally backed off.
She isn't alone either. Alfie Jones is still fighting a ticket he received when he and his pet dog, Jasmine, parked up in Westminster for work. Alfie paid using the new system, after deciding not to go for the nearby pay-and-display unit. On returning to his car he was perplexed to find a ticket on his windshield.
Alfie contacted Westminster City Council only to be told that the parking attendant was correct to issue a parking fine, as Alfie hadn't "paid and displayed". Alfie was confused - how could he possibly display a ticket when his confirmation had come to his phone?
Fighting the decision to fine
The answer is he couldn't and Alfie is still fighting the decision to fine him after first being rejected. Alfie is astounded his fine hasn't been cancelled and describes the system as "totally ridiculous".
Tony Brennan would probably agree. His parking confirmation arrived only after returning to his car to discover a parking fine. This wasn't the only issue. His confirmation did confirm he had a parking space. The only problem was that it was for a space a little west of Westminster - 5,000 miles west in fact.
Turns out the company who runs the Westminster parking system also runs some pay-by-phone parking in America and in Tony's case, it had booked him a spot in Seattle in Washington State. Absurd as that is, the Council wouldn't cancel his fine either.
So, the idea is great but like all new ideas is certainly seems to have some teething problems. It's already up and running in car parks in cities like Salisbury, Birmingham, Manchester and York. And it could be coming your way soon but, hopefully, without the fines.
Westminster City Council's director of parking, Alastair Gilchrist, said: "We are grateful to Watchdog for bringing these issues to our attention and we also want to assure your viewers that we have investigated why these errors occurred.
"We would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Mr Jones, Mr Brennan and Ms Cooper for any inconvenience caused for wrongly issued tickets and will ensure a letter of apology is sent to each of them.
"Many of the difficulties cited with the Pay by Phone system appear to have been down to an element of human error rather than the system itself.
"We have already raised these problems with our contractor and will work with them so we can learn from these mistakes and try to ensure that they do not happen again.
"However, it's important to stress that Pay by Phone parking has proved to be an extremely popular system for many motorists, with almost five million transactions since its introduction in 2006.
"Finally we are dedicated to providing a parking service that is firm, fair and excellent and I would advise any motorist who feels they have been issued a ticket incorrectly to contact us directly."
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Taunton Deane Borough Council in Somerset use a similar system called Ringo. I have used this for the last 3 months very successfully. I know that there have been a few concerns but for me so far so good!
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I use Westminster pay by phone parking all the time and find it absolutely brilliant! I particularly like the ability to extend your parking by phone without returning to the car. I hope ALL councils will switch to it!
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Westminster Park by Text is nightmare, I often Park my Bike at the Bay in Wardour Street next to St. Anns Gardens
Text in to park, get the confirmation text from them, then return to my bike and have reeived a ticket, you try and fight against the fine and they never listen
I know have to park over the Charing Cross Road boundry in Camden (FREE)
Westminster, Get your Act together or put Parking Meters Back
having lived in Soho all my life, Westminster treat it's Residents bad enough how do they Treat Visitors
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Although I am registered with Westminster for this scheme, I tried using my mobile for the first time recently and it was a nightmare, culminating in us driving away and cruising until 6.30pm. This will definately affect the chances of me coming into Westminster to shop or eat. The amount of information you have to key in, in the dark, and then it seems some receipts do not come through is just not worth the hassle or risk. Goodbye Westminster.
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I have used the Verrus system operating in Birmingham, for both work and personal use. I have my work phone registered which takes payments from my business credit card and my personal mobile which takes payments from my personal account. I have never had any problems with the service and have always had very courteous service on those few occasions when I have needed to call with a query, such as changing my car. I have been very happy to recommend the service to others. One point users should consider once they are set up - I have arranged for email confirmations to come to me as well as text messages. It's not been necessary, but if I ever did have to prove that I had paid by phone, then the emails would be there to use.
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Hi i had a problem with the text parking in Westminster. I paid for the parking and when i went to top it up the line was engaged for 45 min and as i was unable to leave where i was and i got a i got a ticket
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Regarding the segment showing the "parking pay-by-phone" debacle. I'm unsure of the company's name, but in Calgary, Canada they run a system where the area you park in has an "area code", this is marked at the end of the street. Then all you do is make note of your area code and your license plate number and pay at a till. These are conveniently located around the downtown core.
The beauty of the system is there is no need to register, so visitors from out of town who may have rented a car but have no mobile aren't left out in the cold. And you can top up your minutes at any Till point in the downtown core, so long as you have your license plate and area code.
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Following the introduction of parking charges for motorcycles in Westminster, motorcyclists are now expected to stand in the rain texting or phoning to pay for a space that takes up an eighth of the space of a car. Or, if they don't have a mobile, they are being issued tickets during the time it takes to get to a phone in their office.
There are other disturbing issues with Westminster's parking contractors. Tickets have been issued to bikes parked in bays without correct/any signage. While Westminster's contractor have admitted in an email that tickets have been issued in error they have no intention for taking responsibility for ensuring that fees received under these circumstances are returned. They will only undertake to return these fees if an appeal is lodged. This, of course, assumes that the motorcyclist is aware that they have a right to appeal on these grounds. (It took me 6 weeks of emails to get this statement from them.) Then there is the issue of all the people who have paid to park in these bays and haven't received a ticket. Surely they should all be reimbursed for their daily/weekly/monthly fees. If an enterprise takes money from people and then provides nothing in return isn't this called...what's the word I'm looking for?
The introduction of this scheme lacked any kind of meaningful consultation process, was introduced with totally inadequate notification, has been a complete shambles and is purely a tax raising exercise which will only discourage a form of transport that relieves congestion and is part of the transport solution not part of the problem.
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Following the introduction of parking charges for motorcycles in Westminster, motorcyclists are now expected to stand in the rain texting or phoning to pay for a space that takes up an eighth of the space of a car. Or, if they don't have a mobile, they are being issued tickets during the time it takes to get to a phone in their office.
There are other disturbing issues with Westminster's parking contractors. Tickets have been issued to bikes parked in bays without correct/any signage. While Westminster's contractor have admitted in an email that tickets have been issued in error they have no intention for taking responsibility for ensuring that fees received under these circumstances are returned. They will only undertake to return these fees if an appeal is lodged. This, of course, assumes that the motorcyclist is aware that they have a right to appeal on these grounds. (It took me 6 weeks of emails to get this statement from them.) Then there is the issue of all the people who have paid to park in these bays and haven't received a ticket. Surely they should all be reimbursed for their daily/weekly/monthly fees. If an enterprise takes money from people and then provides nothing in return isn't this called...what's the word I'm looking for?
The introduction of this scheme lacked any kind of meaningful consultation process, was introduced with totally inadequate notification, has been a complete shambles and is purely a tax raising exercise which will only discourage a form of transport that relieves congestion and is part of the transport solution not part of the problem.
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If this system is going to be introduced nationwide, as I suspect it will evebtually. How will those, like me who do not have a mobile phone, be able to pay for our parking. I take it there will be still be some ticket machines which will accept cash.
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I paid to park my bike in Westminster, but came back to find a parking ticket. They'd stuck up a suspended bay notice after I'd parked at 11:20, then issued the ticket just ten minutes later. 14 other bikes in the same parking bay also got tickets. Westminster parking services have refused to cancel the ticket claiming the sign was displayed three days earlier, but they are not able to provide photographic proof. This hardly seems to be the fair policy Westminster parking services claim to have, simply a greedy money grabbing scheme IMO. I will no longer visit Westminster for shopping.
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I would like to say that the system is flawed and there are inevitably human errors. Generally speaking London Borough of Westminster take a much tougher and rigid stance on parking offences. This stance in totally inflexible.
The training provided in house is that to never admit any wrongdoing and for the victim/offender to prove their innocence. There is no conscience in the councils and no concept of common sense.
It's not that victims cannot accept human or system errors, its the fact that the real victims are treated like criminals and at no point is an apology made or any other showing of goodwill.
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bioGsharpe - I was also parked in the bay that day but my ticket was cancelled and I have a letter from WCC saying that the notice didn't go up until 11.30am on the 5th November. I can give you a copy - Is there a way I can contact you without having to post up personal details here?
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Whilst the Pay by Phone system *itself* is fine in theory, and I've used it, the problem here is that of Westminster Council's draconian and arrogant way of implementing the system, as well as of other Parking changes, plus their total lack of reason and flexibility when you dare to challenge a PCN wrongly issued. A few examples, of many ..
Example 1 (Can't Pay by Phone)
My friend wanted to bring his vehicle (a motorcycle) into Westminster, but he does not have a mobile phone or a credit card. In the end, the only way he could do this was to get me to go to a Library for him, in advance (I had to pay £1.50 plus cost of phone call, plus my petrol, plus postage) to park my *own* motorcycle, go inside and ask for a "Parking Card", which comes at a *minimum* cost of £2 (though the charge for parking for the day should be £1.50), and send him the "Parking Card". When he came into Westminster, he had to sellotape the "Parking Card" to his motorcycle, but still couldn't find any spare parking where he wanted to go, so had to park about a mile away, after wasting about half an hour trying to find a space!!!! Total cost around
£4 plus wasted petrol to rak for about four hours. Not surprisingly, he was not able to give of his best in the job interview, and so did not get the job for which he went. :(
Example 2 (Unfair PCN)
There was no available Residents' Parking space where I live in Westminster (and for which I have a valid Residents' Parking Permit), and I had to unload/load some items, so, (as you are "allowed" to do by Westminster's Rules for up to 20 minutes), I parked on a double yellow line to "Unload" for only about 4 minutes, in a space that in no way impedes any traffic! Despite this, I got a PCN from a CCTV camera. The PCN went to my Company, who automatically paid so as to avoid the charge doubling after 14 days, and in turn charged me the £60 PCN fee plus £25 Admin Fee. Westminster Council rejected the appeal! Cost £85 to legally unload outside my own residence!
Example 3 (Crazy PCN)
A friend of mine was driving along the street, when the van in front stopped to unload. The road was too narrow for him to pass, and traffic was behind, so he had no where to go! However, he got a PCN from a CCTV camera!!!!!
First appeal rejected by Westminster Council. He had to appeal again before they finally gave in!
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What drove me mad about this report was the awful camerawork, swirling around, rapid zooming .... oh reach for the sick bucket!
Please calm the camerawork down and present your excellent reports in a visually less disturbing way.
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Hope this 'pay by phone' parking scheme isn't rolled out literally everywhere. Never mind if it works or not, what if you've never had a mobile phone and won't be getting one? -- like me! Believe it or not, I manage perfectly well without one, and can't think I'm the only one.
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I have had 5 PCNs now from this in Westminster. Stupid I know but each time I think these "teething problems" must have been ironed out - six months later and it is worse. The first 4 payments were ultimately taken upto a week later, and Westminster duly cancelled them. The most recent SMS I sent has never caused a payment, so despite the fact that I sent through a copy of my bill to Westminster they to refused to cancel the PCN. I even showed the SMS to the attendant who issued the ticket. This system doesn't work properly as the contractors whom I have spoken to acknowledge.
I must say the new regulations which load the dice further in favour of the councils are a scandal - I was the victim of a wrongly issued ticket (parked on a yellow line correctly), complained too late and the omburdsman decided they were too busy to even consider it.
The SMS idea is good but it must work. Westminster really need a new policy or to withdraw the system.
Frankly I a system where councils can and are penalised (ie fined) for vexatious ticketing practices and policies is long overdue. They are supposed to serve us not anger us.
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I've used LB Wesminster pay to park motorcycle bays four times and
I've received four tickets. I texted the correction location code as soon as I parked up from my designated mobile to the number on the plate and I've yet to receive an acknowledgement. I've contested all four and all four have been rejected by generic replies. The system
doesn't work but that's clearly not going to get in the way of the
borough making huge ammounts of money from motorists. The only
solution for me is to set off an hour earlier and travel 60 miles on
public transport as I can't afford to park in Westminster. Good
work!
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