The London Borough of Camden issued on street parking permits. They are very high tech with bar codes and all. The enforcement officers simply scan the bar codes and it tells the officer whether or not the permit had been renewed. When renewal time comes around, the permit holder simply sends in his money and the permit is renewed automatically.. They don’t have to send out new permits. But there’s the rub. Read all about it here.
The benefit of the new permit system is that there is no expiry date on the permit. The problem with the permit system is that there is no expiry date on the permit. See the local parking adjudicator found that people can’t be expected to remember a year later when their permit is to expire without a date on the permit. He also noted that the letter sent with the permit could easily be lost and the permit holder shouldn’t be expected to keep it. ALSO he found that reminder notices sent out can get lost (in the mail, I assume) so that didn’t help Camden council either.
The solution: They are sending out stickers with the reminder notices that people can put on their permits. My guess is that when people pay, they will receive another sticker to add to the first one. So why are we doing all this? Why not just send out a new permit every year with a date on the front that the enforcement folks and the permit holder can read and be done with it.
Make a rule that if you don’t pay your parking fee by the end of the month on the permit, you get a ticket. The new systems first sends out a permit with a letter, then sends out a reminder letter, then when you pay, you get a third letter with a new sticker to put on your existing permit.
My way does away with all but the first letter, saves a fortune in postage and administration, and probably is easier to enforce. But it probably isn’t high tech enough.
JVH
