20 December 2013

Tender awarded for new pay parking machines

| johnboy
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It seems hard to believe in this era of Pay-Wave and smart phones that pay parking in Canberra is done with hunks of metal and an easily forged slip of paper.

Thankfully Andrew Barr has announced he’s paying Duncan Solutions to give us something better:

Following an evaluation of all tenders, Duncan Solution has been chosen as the successful tenderer, offering the best overall ‘value for money’ for the Territory.

The Territory will procure 300 machines, including 250 new machines and the upgrade of 50 existing machines.

160 of the new machines will be solar powered, with the remainder mains powered. All machines will have contactless card readers installed, which will allow the Territory to link the parking machines to the MyWay system in the future. However, the ‘tap and go’ functionality of the contactless readers will require some further implementation work, which is expected to be complete before mid-2014.

The machines will also have a Pay by Phone payment option, which will provide increased flexibility for Canberrans.

Preparatory work for the installation of the new machines will commence in February 2014. It is anticipated that the new machines will be installed in the first half of 2014.

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wildturkeycanoe said :

Maybe this http://www.duncansolutions.com.au/payndisplay.php is what they are installing. Looks like it can do just about anything. I wonder if it can make a cappuccino as well.
This aside, what are they going to do with the 10 and 20 cent meters around places like Mort St. in Braddon? It is just ridiculous that you need to carry more than a handful of coins of a specific denomination to park for half an hour, fed into a machine that predates mobile phones. I think the revenue they will lose by upgrading to an easy method of payment, would not be cost effective so they will probably leave them there, just so they can still make a few dollars from little yellow envelopes.

The current ACT Government pay and display machines I’ve seen are also from Duncan Solutions, and according to NSW RMS that model (now superseded) had the capacity to accept card payments, presumably if ordered with that functionality.

As for the penny meters as you say like those in Braddon, I suspect there may be some politics involved in not wanting to encourage people to park too long. But really it’s about time they installed machine like those in the bigger cities, and heck even in smaller country centres like Warnambool, which is Pay and Go machines with numbered bays (http://www.duncansolutions.com.au/payngo.php)

wildturkeycanoe1:45 pm 21 Dec 13

Maybe this http://www.duncansolutions.com.au/payndisplay.php is what they are installing. Looks like it can do just about anything. I wonder if it can make a cappuccino as well.
This aside, what are they going to do with the 10 and 20 cent meters around places like Mort St. in Braddon? It is just ridiculous that you need to carry more than a handful of coins of a specific denomination to park for half an hour, fed into a machine that predates mobile phones. I think the revenue they will lose by upgrading to an easy method of payment, would not be cost effective so they will probably leave them there, just so they can still make a few dollars from little yellow envelopes.

IF done properly, this could do away with Park & Ride permits. In Perth you pay $2 to park at train stations all day. If you fail to tag onto a Transperth service you aren’t able to use your Smartrider to pay for parking the next day.
Surely that could be altered so you pay $2 to park at any Park & Ride & get $2 off your MyWay fare. If you fail to tag on to an ACTION Bus that day, the next time you attempt to use your MyWay card at a Carpark you are charged the daily amount for that day & the previous day.

Madam Cholet said :

Sounds to me like the initial functionality will be inserting the credit card or bank card instead of tap & go/pay wave. It does improve things enormously being able to use a card, but I’m wondering if my car park in city west which was sold for development, and is barely maintained will even get new machines. It was sold in 2008 and no development yet, but could happen anytime I suppose. They may see no point in upgrading machines. Hoping they will though.

If it was sold it would no longer be a government carpark so no would presumably not get new machines. Bit like the one on the south side of the police station off London CCT.

dks00k said :

You missed the “Pay by Phone” option steveu, whatever that might entail…..

Dare I suggest that may be an iPhone only option??

No, it’s an any-phone-that-has-NFC option. That, I understand, excludes iPhones.

Madam Cholet10:16 am 21 Dec 13

All machines will have contactless card readers installed, which will allow the Territory to link the parking machines to the MyWay system in the future. However, the ‘tap and go’ functionality of the contactless readers will require some further implementation work, which is expected to be complete before mid-2014.

Sounds to me like the initial functionality will be inserting the credit card or bank card instead of tap & go/pay wave. It does improve things enormously being able to use a card, but I’m wondering if my car park in city west which was sold for development, and is barely maintained will even get new machines. It was sold in 2008 and no development yet, but could happen anytime I suppose. They may see no point in upgrading machines. Hoping they will though.

Dammit, I never thought of trying to forge them. And now it’s almost too late.

IP

You missed the “Pay by Phone” option steveu, whatever that might entail…..

Dare I suggest that may be an iPhone only option??

steveu said :

Maybe I havent read it right. Apologies if this is the case.

Tap and go in JB’s extract of the release is referring to using a Myway card an development to integrate the two.

That said on the Canberra Crimes website it has a larger extract that goes on to say the machines will take credit card, and of course if you are using pay by phone it will also need to link into a credit card.

What neither talks about is whether they will continue to take cash…

Im not sure if they have spelled out what extra functionality these machines offer over the previous ones, apart from the fact 160 of them will be solar powered, and the machines will have capability to take payments from myway cards.

Would I be correct in assuming they are saying that you can use your credit card/eft card by mid 2014 when they have tap and go functionality sorted out?

I guess what I am saying is that unless you have a myway card, you are still carrying ‘a s***load of dimes’ (quoting Blazing Saddles).

Not that I think that myway card functionaility isnt a good thing, its great, it just should have been rolled out at the same time it was introduced onto buses IMHO,

Maybe I havent read it right. Apologies if this is the case.

yay – welcome to the 21st century for pay parking ACT Govt, you’re only a large number of years behind.

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