Agenda item

The Committee received a report in relation to the upgrading of the on-street Pay & Display machines.

Members were advised that there were currently around 90 on-street parking Pay & Display (P&D) machines in the City offering customers the option to pay for parking by cash.  A reduction of about a third was currently underway to reduce operational costs, mainly targeting places where there was more than one machine in close proximity.

Members noted that the machines were now over 10 years old and approaching the end of their useful life. They were becoming more unreliable, spare parts were becoming harder to find and maintenance costs were increasing.

However, upgrading all the existing machines at this point would not allow the testing of whether drivers parking in the Square Mile were ready to embrace a full ‘mobile payment only’ solution and it was therefore proposed to select areas in the City to move to a ‘phone payment only’ solution based on the current assessment of ‘mobile payment’ usage and monitor public reaction, and where a high degree of cash usage remains, the existing P&D machines would be upgraded.

RESOLVED – To agree:

1)            To upgrade those machines where cash usage remains high in order to address the underlying maintenance issue of aging machines in those areas;

2)            To run a six month cashless trial in areas with very low cash usage in order to gauge the impact and public reaction; and

3)            That a report back to Members on the results of that trial be made before deciding to continue with further upgrades or a wider removal of cash payment, albeit should there be immediate adverse consequences of introducing the trial, officers would report this back to Members more quickly.