South Australia’s hospital parking charges impact health budget
South Australia’s Health Minister, John Hill, has said that the state’s heath budget could overrun by $99 million for the financial year. According to ABC News, he blames the overspend on unforseen demand for health care, and a shortfall of $11 million in hospital parking revenue, with the protracted legal dispute over hospital parking fees […]
US town residents to build an off airport parking facility
Residents of Decatur in Indianapolis, US, have received approval to open a paid parking lot near the local airport, with revenues going to the community rather than the airport authority. The private group of residents were successful in defeating strong opposition from the mayor’s office and the airport who claimed that parking is not the […]
California gets more transport sharing options
The residents of two major cities in California have recently seen the introduction of car sharing and bicycle hire operations, thus increasing their choice of transport. In Los Angeles, the US’s largest car sharing network, Zipcar, has recently opened for business, placing over 125 vehicles throughout the city. The ‘car capital’ of the US is […]
How are electric vehicle sales performing?
Figures released this week from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries said that only 49 electric cars were sold in Australia last year, in a market that topped 1 million total vehicles for the first time. According to the SMH, the number of electric vehicles sold declined by 9.9 per cent on 2010. Whilst politicians […]
Westminster ends free parking – others should do the same!
In the UK, Westminster City Council has announced that free parking is to be abolished in the district, preventing around 1,200 cars from parking without charge. According to the Fitzrovia News site, the move has been welcomed by residents who complain about cars blocking streets and circulating looking for free parking spaces. But it has […]
Melbourne Airport opens new ‘Ring & Ride’ area
Melbourne Airport has introduced a new ‘Ring and Ride’ waiting area in its long term car park, where drivers can wait for arriving passengers to phone to say that they are ready to be picked up from the airport’s terminal. According to the Australian Business Traveller, Airport CEO Chris Woodruff explained that the Ring & […]
Dutch bicycle congestion
The Dutch are facing the consequences of their own cycling success, including congestion, lack of parking and infrastructure. In a country where bicycles outnumber people by 1.2 million, the Dutch have simply run out of space to accommodate the 5 million cyclists who take to the road every day. In Amsterdam alone, 490,000 cyclists travel […]
London’s bendy buses no more
London’s Mayor, Boris Johnson, has made good another of his promises, seeing the large ‘bendy buses’ removed from the city’s public transport system. Whilst removing larger vehicles with greater capacity may seem counter-intuitive, an article on TreeHugger discusses the pros and cons of removing the buses: They are faster to board, having three sets of […]
Brisbane park‘n’ride woes
The City of Brisbane seems to be having a few issues with its Park‘n’Ride system. We recently posted an article on the introduction of paid parking at the Westfield Chermside mall, a move by Westfield to stop commuters from using their facilities as a free park and ride car park. The result was an overflow […]
Parking news review 2011
Another year, another summary. In what has become an annual tradition, we try and distil the key news and trends from the Wayfinding Forum blog. It’s no easy job, with just under 200 posts published every year… Parking rates and sentiment In 2011, Australian parking rates and the construction industry sentiment were inversely proportional. Sydney […]
Melbourne Airport outlines growth plans
Melbourne Airport has announced plans to build a $300 million passenger terminal and improve freeway access. A new terminal, Terminal Four, will be built to the south of the existing T3 building. The redevelopment will include a new multi-level car park, widened roads, new baggage facilities and several extra plane gates. The new terminal will […]
The world’s most crowded parking lot?
This parking lot in Sichuan Province, China, manages to squeeze around 70 cars into an area of just 500 square metres. The video says it all!
Ok, I’m selling the Porsche!
A guest blog post from Parking & Traffic Consultants’ Senior Traffic Engineer and resident bicycle enthusiast, Andrew Morse. Well, I would if I owned one and here are two reasons why I would sell mine. Firstly, people who buy exotic cars will justify their purchase because they claim to want exquisite quality and exhilarating […]
Cristina is on the move (again)…
The next couple of weeks will be very interesting for Cristina Lynn. She is bound for South America to attend a couple of challenging conferences. First stop is Brazil where a former organiser of the Intertraffic event in The Netherlands started a series of trade events in Sao Paulo, called TranspoQuip. This year, in addition […]
Townsville parking officers to wear recorders
Council officers in Townsville are being equipped with small recording devices to give them additional support in dealing with angry motorists. The devices are being worn on the outside of the shirts of the officers, and are able to capture both voice and image recordings. The tool is being used mainly for collecting evidence, with […]
Tokyo cyclists get smartphone bike sharing
Whilst bike-sharing schemes are relatively commonplace in Europe, in Tokyo they are still a rarity, despite the fact that the Japanese are bike-crazy. The launch of a new bicycle-sharing service aims to change that, adding another layer of technological innovation to the existing model. The program, called Cosoado Cycles, not only places ‘cycle ports’ in […]
Perth airport introduces Park & Wait short-term facility
Perth airport has introduced a new Park & Wait facility in a bid to discourage illegal parking by the main entrance to the domestic terminal. According to The West Australian, despite all short-term car parks at the airport being free for the first 10 minutes, approximately 63,000 motorists are illegally parking around the precinct waiting […]
Australian airport regulations once again in focus
Australian Airports are again in conflict with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), with the incoming ACCC chairman making a speech singling out the airports as a particular focus of attention. Press reports from SMH.com.au quote Rod Sims, the ACCC chairman, as proposing greater regulation over the services provided by the privately owned airports, […]
Cycling in China and Australia
An article published last week on The Conversation drew comparisons between cycling in China and Australia, ultimately with the aim of applying learnings from the high bicycle usage in China to the growing but still infant usage in our country. The author, Matthew Burke, a research fellow at Griffith University, believes firstly that infrastructure is […]
Ride to work day
Yesterday, October 12, Australia held an annual ‘Ride to Work Day’. The initiative, organised by Bicycle Network Victoria, saw a big turnout across the country, with Fairfax media reporting an estimated 150,000 participants nationally (of which 40,000 in Victoria). An estimated 3.6 million Australians already ride their bikes at least once a week, with 1.1 […]
Which lane today?
A guest post by Andrew Morse, our senior traffic engineer. A question was posted on a Linkedin group recently asking “does the ‘Keep Right Unless Overtaking’ rule still apply in the US?”. This got me thinking about the situation in Australia, where like other countries that drive on the sensible side of the road, the […]
For heaven’s sake can we stop queuing through intersections?
A guest post by Andrew Morse, our senior traffic engineering consultant There, I’ve said it and I feel much better. Well not really because every day I am astounded by the number of drivers who think it’s perfectly acceptable to enter an intersection (typically on amber) knowing full well that they can’t clear the intersection […]
Are new parking charges illegal?
According to the Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard, the Cotswold District Council (UK) recently voted to extend weekday parking charges to Sundays and apply a flat rate £1.50 fee for overnight parking between 6pm and 8am, in a bid to raise £55,000 extra revenue. In the newspaper article it is claimed that a UK parking consultant […]
Technology enabling greater vehicle utilisation
We have posted in the past a number of articles about car sharing, with companies such as GoGet operating in Australia and Zipcar in the US. Robin Chase, the founder Zipcar, talked at TED in 2007 about a range of other technology-enabled ways of reducing car usage, the first being technology to enable ‘ridesharing’ – […]
Parking ticket stunt
UK telco T-mobile has capitalised on the emotional distress that a parking ticket can cause to drivers – especially when they don’t think that they deserve it. They’ve come up with a great idea that plays on this and catches more than a few people out! Enjoy.
Melbourne CBD park values continue to rise
Fairfax reported this week that the value of individual car park bays in the Melbourne CBD are now selling up to $100,000, due to population growth and Melbourne City Council’s discouragement of long-term commercial parking. According to data from Savills Australia, state-titled single car parking bays, such as the Paramount complex in Bourke Street, are […]
Parking Today interviews university parking professionals
Following our post two weeks ago interviewing parking professional Barbara Chance on automated car parks, this week Parking Today magazine have published a summation of an interview with two parking professionals from the University of Texas, Austin, exploring the issues facing university campus parking. The two interviewees are Bob Harkins, Associate VP for Campus Safety […]
SA Transport Chief calls for reduced CBD car parking
The Advertiser reported this week that the chief executive of Adelaide City Council’s Transport Department has called for a reduction in the number of car spaces in the CBD, and an increase in parking pricing. Rod Hook, Transport Department chief executive, was reported by The Advertiser as saying that Adelaide commuters had become too used […]
Airport car parking prices and performance
According to a recently released Productivity Commission draft report, Australia’s five major airports have been found not to be misusing their market power in setting car parking and land access rates. The report, entitled ‘Economic Regulation of Airport Services’, differed from the findings of the report into airport parking prices by the Australian Competition and […]
Mobile cashless payments by card and phone
Following our recent blog post about the launch of ‘Google Wallet’ and the emergence of secure payments by mobile phones using ‘Near Field Communications’ (NFC), one of the UK’s largest transport operators announced this week that it will be fitting contactless card readers to its fleet of approximately 5,000 buses across England in 2012. FirstGroup aims […]