Pay And Display

[johnny_t]

Why don't Car Park P&D machines take cards. York, which is extremely dear, costs £2 per hour in all council car parks, so you need about £6 in change whenever you want to go in, which takes some planning.

It can't be that hard, surely

 

[Diyisfun]

Well each machine would need a link to the outside world, but the plus point would be no £££ in the machines to be stolen.

 

[johnny_t]

Actually, you raise a couple of points that have got me wondering. A link to the outside world would be useful, but this can be farily easily achieved by either running extra cable along with the power, or by the magic of radio.

However, I remember in the past, before mobile comms had taken off in such a large way, you could pay for your train ticket on the train, with the conductor using a hand-held terminal. As far as I could see, these weren't connected up to anything, and I assumed that they just stored up all their transactions ready for a big download at the end of the day. I guessed that they had an allowance to be written off for fraud, but considered it worthwhile. A bit like when you just got your card swiped on one of those carbon-paper things.

The lack of coins inside would be a benefit though - the main reasons that BT public phones used to go down was because of the coinbox being full - reliability is much higher now the majority are card payment.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Why don't Car Park P&D machines take cards. York, which is extremely dear, costs £2 per hour in all council car parks, so you need about £6 in change whenever you want to go in, which takes some planning.

It can't be that hard, surely

No it's not. It's only hard here
Most car parks in the low lands have these card accepting machines for ages now

 

[ohmygodwhathaveyoudone]

would stop someone nicking your car if you had to insert the same card again to make the barrier go up.just a suggestion.

 

[WoodYouLike]

would stop someone nicking your car if you had to insert the same card again to make the barrier go up.just a suggestion.

That's an idea!

Just reminded me of what happened when we took our UK car back home and I went into town on my own in this car. Wrong!!!! My arms aren't that long!

 

[johnny_t]

Many French 'Peage' stations have a special UK lane with the card slots on the wrong (right ?) side - Must be a common problem over there.......


Off-topic, but I once drove over the border from Canada to the US, which is referred to as 'Etats-Unis'. Without thinking, I bowled up in the line marked 'Residents E.U' (i.e. US citizens, in French) and had to face the wrath of the queue of traffic behind me once I got up to the post and it turned out I was anything but......

 

[WoodYouLike]

 

[comms]

In berkshire there are some p/d machines that you enter your mobile phone number into your then charged for parking via your mobile phone bill.

 

[WoodYouLike]

Handy when you're phone is stolen
The police can then track the movement of the thief

 

[Steve]

I went to a multi-storey in rotherham once (i think it was rotherham) with a complex but effective system.

• You enter the car park, are given a ticket which you take away with you.
• park your car, do your shopping
• put the ticket into the pay machine, pay by your chosen means (cards and cash, even notes accepted)
• the machine knows exactly how long your car has been in the car park so you pay the right amount
• The machine gives you another ticket which you feed into the barrier exit.

So you cant take a car away without having the first ticket and paying for the parking. Surprised Rotherham used this system though - i would think not many people who live there would actually understand it

do they still make new parking meters? Doncaster council recently built a car park and fitted these rusty old p&d machines with iron bars across the front because the original safe lock has worn out

 

[petewood]

I went to a multi-storey in rotherham once :

Sorry to hear that, have you got over it now?

 

[kendor]

Farnborough has machines that take cash and cards though the cards are pre paid ones. trouble with cards is they are easily left in the machine as i've found several in the past.