King of the car park
Lost no more?! More than 500 years since King Richard III was killed in battle, archaeologists believe they have finally found his skeleton buried beneath a council car park. Experts said a fully intact skeleton matched much about what they knew of the medieval king, including his reputation as a “hunchback”, and are hoping that […]
Britain’s parking demand
Following the recent publishing of the RAC report into UK parking policy and practice, the UK’s Telegraph has distilled many of the key findings of the report, including: The current number of cars on UK roads is 28.5 million. In 1950 there were two million cars on the roads, and the projection is to reach […]
London installs in-street parking sensors
Westminster City Council, in central London, is set to become the first to use in-ground sensor technology to detect whether a car is parked in the space. According to UK’s Telegraph, the three month trial will be run across a number of streets, with plans to roll out the technology to the rest of the West […]
Parking policy and practice – a UK report
A report released in July by the UK’s Royal Automobile Club (RAC) has detailed British parking policy and practice. Called “Spaced Out: Perspectives on parking policy”, the 113 page report offers a huge depth of data on the industry. The report focuses on the demand and supply of parking, with a particular emphasis on the […]
Hate to wait: Heathrow pods experienced first hand
Reporting on-location, our London correspondent recently filed a report on the electric pods at Heathrow airport, shuttling passengers from the business car park to Terminal 5 (see also our previous stories on the pods, Pods from the car park at Heathrow Airport, and Heathrow airport pods are now in motion). Some of the key features […]
Cycling in London: an entirely different sort of pursuit event
You may be accustomed to reading Lionel Shriver fiction and even seeing some of her more renowned work on the big screen (We need to talk about Kevin). However, she has recently taken up her pen for The Atlantic Magazine to express her personal disappointment with London’s cyclists. She offers an interesting view point, as […]
Can this decision by a UK Car Park operator be considered un-Olympic?
Britain’s biggest car park operator NCP was accused of taking advantage of the Olympics as charges at its central London sites increased by up to three-fold since the beginning of the games. According to the UK’s Daily Mail, visitors to the capital are being hit with parking prices ramped up by an ‘average’ of 40 […]
Britain’s most bike friendly universities
The UK’s Telegraph published a great gallery of their top 10 most bike-friendly universities. We thought we would conclude this week’s blog posts with a selection of three of our favourites (of the top ten) below. At No. 10: Oxford University (image in heading above) offers 2,900 bike spaces dotted around what is the UK’s […]
Mary Portas is almost correct about UK town city centre parking
There’s been a lot of exposure in the UK on Mary Portas, the spokesperson and champion of reinvigorating local high streets (see our past article ). This week we came across commentary by UK parking consultant Chris Wortley on the likelihood of councils abolishing paid parking on their high streets. Acknowledging that this is highly […]
UK pilots electric-only car share scheme
A car sharing group in the UK will be the first in the country to exclusively use electric vehicles. The scheme, run by Sustainable Venture Development, will be piloted in north Oxfordshire. According to BBC.co.uk, the cars will have dedicated bays on the street, beside which there will be specific fast-charging infrastructure installed, ensuring that […]
Leicester opens bicycle park
A secure cycle parking facility in the centre of Leicester has been reopened under new management after a year-long refurbishment programme. The Bike Park, which is located beneath Leicester Town Hall, incorporates showers, lockers and a bike shop as well as parking spaces for 110 bikes. According to the BBC, the premises were refurbished at […]
Nurses protest over parking charges
In the UK, nurses and health workers protested over a proposed increase in car parking charges to £40 a month for staff and patients’ relatives. Over five hundred nurses and staff have signed a petition opposing the imposition of the increased parking charges. According to The Guardian, those against the plan claim that staff will […]
Pre-booking parking at airports
We came across an interesting article which explores the pre-booked parking phenomenon and why it is commonplace in the UK – accounting for around 20% of airport parking – but almost non-existent around the rest of the world. The article’s author, Chris Wortley, asserts that the practice came about from two factors: high prices at […]
Shrinkable cars are all the rage
Following last week’s post about MIT’s ‘folding’ Hiriko City Car, scientists have unveiled a similar 2.1m ‘pod’ car that can shrink to fit into tight parking spaces. The car’s length can be reduced by 50 centimetres by the driver for those tight parking spots, and like the Hiriko, it also features wheels that can turn […]
London 2012 sets out venue parking plans
The world’s biggest transportation and parking challenge (the Olympics) has seen the London 2012 Organising Committee publish proposals for parking management and parking plans around all Olympic and Paralympic venues in London. According to the Organising Committee’s press release, the proposed plans would see a number of traffic alterations and parking restrictions in the vicinity […]
San Fran parking plan undergoing reappraisal
After a strong pushback from the residents and business owners in neighbourhoods planned for parking meter expansion, San Francisco transportation officials have said that they will gather more data and work more closely with each neighbourhood to refine the parking management proposals. According to SFGate.com, the plan to add about 5,000 new meters across a […]
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 […]
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 […]
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!
Counting parking spots from above
We came across a really interesting study by two students at the University of Connecticut, who have analysed aerial photographs of a number of cities, figuring out the location of at-grade car parks and counting all the spaces. It’s interesting for two reasons. Firstly, they found that in some of the cities they analysed (New […]
Heathrow airport pods are now in motion
According to BAA’s Commercial Press office, the pod system consists of 21 low energy, battery powered, driverless, zero emission vehicles capable of carrying four passengers and their luggage along a dedicated 3.8km guide way. The pods will carry 500,000 passengers each year, giving them a smooth and virtually silent five minute ride. The journey is […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
Pods from the car park at Heathrow Airport
London’s Heathrow Airport has recently launched a commercial personal rapid transit system, with 22 electric autopilot pods now shuttling 800 passengers a day back and forth from parking lots to the British Airways terminal. Called ULTra, or Urban Light Transport, the pods are a self-driving, electric-powered pods which can carry four to six passengers plus […]
Driver flips car into parking space
A CCTV camera in a car park caught incredible footage recently of a driver who (presumably accidentally) cartwheeled his Porsche over a wall and into a parking space. The driver was lucky enough to walk away from the vehicle after it flipped 360 degrees landing between two parked cars. Click to watch the video above.
Study on parking space management finds Europe leads the way
A study released late last year by the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy in New York has found that ‘parking management is a critical and often overlooked tool for achieving a variety of social goals.’ The study, titled ‘Europe’s Parking U-Turn: From Accommodation to Regulation’, cited improved air quality, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, reduced […]
Drivers ‘spend a year looking for spaces’
A UK survey released this week claims that drivers lose a year of their lives searching for a parking space – the equivalent of more than six days a year circling streets and car parks looking for a spot. Based on a motorists’ driving ‘life’ of around 50 years, the lost time adds up to […]
UK airport parking valet service offers more than just parking
We have come across several articles from the UK in the past week about airport valet parking services hiring out their customers’ cars to tourists and other users whilst overseas. Airport valet parking or ‘meet and greet’ services are becoming increasingly popular with UK customers, with companies picking up the car from the airport, parking […]
Automated car park in Birmingham
A new car park in Birmingham has been made possible by the installation of a sophisticated £2m robotic system that enables cars to park themselves. The car park is situated 20 metres (65ft) below ‘The Cube’, a canal-side office and apartment development, access to which is hampered by nearby shops and bars. The use of […]