Would market price car parking work in Canberra?

wildturkeycanoe said :

How would the algorithm take into account things like flexi days for instance with a whole heap of extra spaces on a Friday?
I for one would hate to see the price change regularly and not be able to budget for parking a week in advance.

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Do the same for the ridiculous multistory parks at the Canberra Center too, it is way overpriced in my opinion.

One question though, would this proposal not start up a price war and competition between the private owners and the government for parking revenue? Are there safeguards in place presently that prevent that from happening?

The algorithm would take into account weekly and yearly historical data to make decisions. I can’t imagine it would be entirely unsupervised, a human would need to tell it about holidays etc to keep things sane. After a few weeks you would likely be able to budget to a figure pretty close to the previous week, barring any major changes in the market.

As I mentioned before, private carparks would need to compete. This is essentially starting a ‘price war’ Whether their prices go up or down as a result would be hard to say. If private carpark lowered their prices to try and get more customers, so would the public carpark, so why lower them in the first place? Again, a large ‘market force’such as the Canberra center would have a reasonable amount of control over the system.

Rollersk8r said :

It’s definitely worth considering, but I see way too many problems, including:

1. Hard to coordinate between government and non-gov car parks. Most in Civic are private, I think?
2. You’d be extremely annoyed if today’s $6 park was suddenly $12 tomorrow.
3. Once you are in the car then the price is irrelevant – you are driving and parking regardless. Whole new layer of complexity to be able to check the anticipated price before you leave home.
4. Further, many people (myself included) have a specific need to drive and park on certain days. Price largely doesn’t bother me.
5. It may have the reverse effect of actually encouraging more people to drive (when it’s cheaper).

PS. They already have lowered the price of bus fares for very early in the morning.

Fair questions to ask. Here’s my take on them:
1. I think most of the big open air carparks are government owned. There wouldn’t need to be any coordination in any case. Either private lots would face losing business, or experience higher demand allowing them to raise their prices. (Just like any other variable price market)
2. I doubt it would ever fluctuate that much (versus the figures from the previous week). It wouldn’t be unreasonable to publish the next day’s price sometime in the morning.
3. Ifyou could check the prices (and fill levels) before leaving. It could even be possible to prepay and reserve a space!
5. I agree with this, but after thinking about this idea for a few more days and looking at carparks, I must concede that it would probably increase prices in the city center.

arescarti42 said :

ChrisinTurner said :

One of the intentions was to lower road congestion and stop rat-running by getting more people onto public transport. This is working as evidenced by empty car-parks. Congratulations to everyone concerned.

That’s probably true to some extent. It’s also true that a lot of the people that used to park for free just found somewhere else to park.

A large proportion of the people who used to park at Anzac Park East seem to have ended up on the back streets of suburban Campbell for example.

That’s right, all the cheap or virtually free spots in the blocks around Civic are filled up leaving the pay parking facilities wondering where they all went.

ChrisinTurner said :

One of the intentions was to lower road congestion and stop rat-running by getting more people onto public transport. This is working as evidenced by empty car-parks. Congratulations to everyone concerned.

That’s probably true to some extent. It’s also true that a lot of the people that used to park for free just found somewhere else to park.

A large proportion of the people who used to park at Anzac Park East seem to have ended up on the back streets of suburban Campbell for example.

rubaiyat said :

Rollersk8r said :

PS. They already have lowered the price of bus fares for very early in the morning.

I hope you are not in charge of major financial matters, if that is a significance. But you never know in this town!

If you are concerned about saving money, the huge difference between driving and parking, and taking public transport makes the minor savings of off peak public transport absolutely trivial.

There is nothing rational about what people choose. We have a bus stop practically outside our door, when my wife and I both worked in the City, I caught the bus because I could, and because I could get work done on route. My wife wouldn’t take the bus full stop. She’d make up all sorts of excuses, none of which made sense. No discussion, just some inexpressible fear or aversion, or that someone she knows might see her or “something”.

She should have stuck with our neighbour’s repost, when I mentioned the convenience of having direct public transport at our doorstep. At a single word and a sharp glance she made it clear that she NEVER takes public transport! Unthinkable! How dare I suggest that she ever would.

Not sure I am forgiven yet, or whether I am branded for life.

“At a single word and a sharp glance she made it clear that she NEVER takes public transport! Unthinkable! How dare I suggest that she ever would.”
Ha, ha, reminds me of a neighbour I had. Every day she would drive to work, when there was a direct bus there. One day I said to her how convenient it was having a direct bus between us and there and only 15 minutes travel. She looked at me strangely and stated, “I NEVER catch buses.” My estimation of her plummeted after that.
I think there is a percentage of people who make all sorts of excuses why they don’t use buses, but basically it stems from that attitude.

A new multistorey $9.50 a day car park has recently opened in Woden, opposite the Sirius Building and Aviation House. Even though the car parks opposite the Albemarle/Alexander Buildings were immediately closed, it’s interesting to note that there now appears to be an over-supply of parking in Woden, as the top level of the new car park is barely occupied and there are now spaces all day in the $8 parks next to the old CIT. People are obviously prepared to pay an extra $1.50 for a few hundred metres less to walk.

One of the intentions was to lower road congestion and stop rat-running by getting more people onto public transport. This is working as evidenced by empty car-parks. Congratulations to everyone concerned.

How would the algorithm take into account things like flexi days for instance with a whole heap of extra spaces on a Friday?
I for one would hate to see the price change regularly and not be able to budget for parking a week in advance.
Why not do the same for public transport too? If the buses are empty, make the fare cheaper. If they are crowded, charge a bit more.
If people are using more electricity why not lower the price and charge extra when it is in high demand. Oh, they already do that don’t they. Well, it seems like the concept has already been adopted in some industries, so why not. If it is a win for drivers then I say go for it. Do the same for the ridiculous multistory parks at the Canberra Center too, it is way overpriced in my opinion.

One question though, would this proposal not start up a price war and competition between the private owners and the government for parking revenue? Are there safeguards in place presently that prevent that from happening?

Well considering the last couple of days the Canberra Times has been reporting about the huge windfall and how quickly the paid parking in the triangle turned a profit I think your argument is flawed.

As someone who works in the area the car parks are still pretty full by 9AM. In fact on Wednesday the parking near Finance was full.

Rollersk8r said :

PS. They already have lowered the price of bus fares for very early in the morning.

I hope you are not in charge of major financial matters, if that is a significance. But you never know in this town!

If you are concerned about saving money, the huge difference between driving and parking, and taking public transport makes the minor savings of off peak public transport absolutely trivial.

There is nothing rational about what people choose. We have a bus stop practically outside our door, when my wife and I both worked in the City, I caught the bus because I could, and because I could get work done on route. My wife wouldn’t take the bus full stop. She’d make up all sorts of excuses, none of which made sense. No discussion, just some inexpressible fear or aversion, or that someone she knows might see her or “something”.

She should have stuck with our neighbour’s repost, when I mentioned the convenience of having direct public transport at our doorstep. At a single word and a sharp glance she made it clear that she NEVER takes public transport! Unthinkable! How dare I suggest that she ever would.

Not sure I am forgiven yet, or whether I am branded for life.