London Telegraph
The parking spy that tells wardens when you are due a ticket
By David Millward, Transport Correspondent
(Filed: 20/04/2005)
A parking enforcement device that sends messages to alert traffic wardens that a driver should be given a ticket was put on show yesterday as plans were announced for a professional qualification for parking attendants.
The ParkingEye looks little more than an ordinary pay and display machine at first sight. But one day it will instil as much fear into motorists as speed cameras.
Traffic warden and ParkingEye
ParkingEye alerts traffic wardens by text messages
Even Andrew McKerney, the managing director of the manufacturers, said the machine was "evil" - before correcting himself and describing it as merely "very efficient".
The on-street version of the six-foot tall device spots a car as it parks and sends a text message to a traffic warden within seconds if the motorist either doesn't pay or overstays.
"Traffic wardens won't roam any more," Mr McKerney said with evident glee, "They will respond."
The version of the machine designed for car parks notes number plates on entry and, should the motorist fail to leave on time, issues a fine automatically.
The device was among an array of Orwellian technology on show at Parkex 2005, the parking industry trade show which opened in Birmingham yesterday, demonstrating that there is a lot of money to be made in an industry which is worth an estimated £3 billion a year.
It was all rather different from the days when Carl C Magee unveiled the world's first parking meter in Oklahoma City in 1935 or when they appeared on the streets of London in 1958.
ACPOA, which runs parking in a number of London boroughs, was particularly proud of its new hand-held computer for parking attendants.
It takes a picture of the offending car and sticks a picture on the parking ticket.
"There are always people trying to get out of paying fines, making all sorts of excuses," said Malcolm Daughtrey, the company's head of business development.
"This will prove an offence has been committed. If someone has parked on double yellow lines, this will prove it. So the collection rate will increase."
Such new technology will make parking attendants efficient, but it will hardly make them popular.
So perhaps it was just as well that the British Parking Association announced plans yesterday to offer Britain's 15,000 attendants a professional qualification.
An angry motorist will at least have the consolation of knowing that his or her ticket has been issued by an attendant in possession of a National Vocational Qualification.
The first student parking attendants are expected to enrol in the voluntary scheme within days. The course, which will also include basic parking law, is designed to improve the status of the job.
Perhaps it is just as well it will include instruction in how to spot signs that the driver's protests are about to turn physical.
"We will teach them awareness of people's behaviour and how to assess risk," said Rob Roseveare, who will be running the course. But even the angriest motorist will be rendered impotent by the latest wheel clamps.
The TMP Pro Mark Four was the talk of the show yesterday. "When that goes on, it stays on," said David Newman, general manager of Traffic Management Products, the manufacturers.
"It covers a whole range of cars, from a Mini to urban tractors. You wouldn't like to mess with one of those, it is a beast."
The fearsome contraption comes in two pieces. First there are a set of yellow steel jaws which fix themselves on to the rim of the hubcap and that is in turn secured by a foot-long rod.
While the industry talks of improving its image, the presence of nine different bailiffs' firms at the trade show suggests that what really matters is collecting the money.
"Everything is done electronically now," said Nick Bradley, managing director of Philips, a Darlington-based firm which deals in "debt recovery solutions".
As his staff offered small rubber clamps to passers-by, he explained how his men could be on somebody's doorstep within minutes.
"I have been a bailiff 15 years now. People have a different attitude to debt nowadays. At dinner parties they used to talk about their mortgage, now it's about how much they owe," he said with a certain amount of disgust.
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