Phone plan still on hold

In May, 2012, councillors considered a proposal from CellOPark Australia for pay by phone parking.

At the time, CellOPark Australia was looking to break into the market and sign up a customer to use for demonstrations.

Councillors referred the report back for further investigation of alternatives, which initiated a call for expressions of interest.

The City received five submissions and it was found CellOPark Australia was the best proposal regarding technology but the cost had increased because it now had Curtin University as a customer for demonstrations.

At last month’s briefing, corporate services director Mike Tidy said CellOPark Australia’s proposal included maintenance service charges that ‘potentially add about $6000 a year regardless of logging transactions’.

‘The issue with on-street/off-street parking currently is we felt that it would be a fairly low initial take-up and when we have a minimum fee already of $6000 that would make it somewhat a disadvantage to take up that service,’ he said.

‘On that basis, it was decided after some time that we would reject all the expressions of interest and the proposal is we reconsider a pay by phone system in conjunction with the technology that we’re looking at for the multi-storey car park.’

The City is looking to incorporate a ticketless licence plate recognition system in its multi-storey car park it plans to build in the city centre.

A council document said integrating the two technologies would enable the driver to leave the car park and have the appropriate fee charged to their registered CellO-Park Australia account.

At last month’s meeting, Mayor Troy Pickard requested a report on the feasibility of the City developing its own software for a pay by phone parking system.

‘When this item came before us 12 months ago, I recall speaking against this item effectively giving a reasonable slice of paid parking revenue to an external operator for not providing a great deal of value in the chain and indeed that’s a space that I think the City of Joondalup can actively play in,’ he said.

Construction of the multi-storey car park is due to start in July and be completed in mid-2015.