Firm boasts of doubling penalty fines
‘Complaints and fines skyrocketed’
IT is a slick video presentation by two businessmen with every reason to be optimistic about their firm’s future, writes Jonathan Brocklebank.
For the first time in its history it has recorded a net profit after tax – and with its successful business model now being rolled out all over the UK, a rapid rise in revenue looks assured.
A graph displayed beside Chief Financial Officer Richard Ludbrook shows that in the first quarter of the last financial year Smart Parking issued
5,838 of the ‘fines’ it calls parking breach notices. By the second quarter of this one, that had doubled to 91,538.
It is at this point Australia-based Mr Ludbrook states: ‘Revenue in the parking management division makes up 90 per cent of the group’s revenue – and 75 per cent of revenue in the parking services division is made up of parking breach notices... Parking breach notices continue to grow rapidly in the first half of the year following the roll-out of technology in manually operated sites.’
Parking breach notices are the firm’s bread and butter. Its business model is founded, then, not on people paying for their parking but on failing to pay for it in accordance with its strict rules.
Also presenting company figures is Paul Gillespie, chief executive of Smart Parking, who has relocated to Australia. Formerly of Petersfield in East Hampshire, his background is ‘parking technology’ – providing new systems of operating car parks for public and private sector groups.
He says Smart Parking is increasingly moving in the direction of a ‘barrier-less, ticketless and also security-driven environment’.
The criticism of such systems, however, is they are completely unforgiving of honest mistakes.
As Scottish Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said of Perth’s Kinnoull Street car park: ‘Since the system changed from pay-and-display to a complicated number plate recognition system, fines and complaints have skyrocketed.
‘Private car-parking companies are dependent on revenue from fines and any system that hands out more tickets will naturally push up profits.’
Smart Parking may claim its earliest car park is in Kinnoull Street but that was managed and run from 1993 by Town & City Parking.
It was taken over in 2012 by Car Parking Technologies, established in 2007 in New Zealand and which later made Australia its centre of operations. The technology arm of the business is mainly based in New Zealand and Australia.
Smart Parking said: ‘The revenues we make from car park management are in line with other car park operators.
‘Our car parks allow motorists to pay for additional time prior to leaving our facilities – a system we feel is fair to the motorist.
‘We encourage any motorist to appeal if they feel they have been issued a charge in error.’