Many English councils have discovered a splendid economy: remove the parking machines, save the cost of maintaining them, and make the motorist pay a private company to collect the money. Where the app is compulsory, the company is spared even the trouble of persuading the motorist to buy its services. This is called “convenience”.
Pay by app at the council’s Christleton Road car park in Chester, and 50p for two hours becomes 70p. Forty per cent extra! In Harrogate, an 80p hour in the town centre carries a compulsory 30p app charge. Drivers who opt for confirmation or expiry messages may pay another 10p to 30p per text.
The Guardian tested four apps. Not one clearly displayed its service fee until the payment stage. With RingGo, the explanation could be reached through a small “see prices” link or an information symbol; with JustPark, through a tiny pale grey “i”. PayByPhone’s explanation lay below the Apple Pay button, at the end of the page. MiPermit listed its fee above the final price, at the end of the booking.
“Nothing is added at the payment stage,” declares JustPark. PayByPhone assures us: “The pricing elements related to parking, SMS options and service fees are presented before payment confirmation.” And before the motorist parks? Before they have accepted the terms displayed on the council’s sign?
Here we encounter that admirable contrivance, the separate contract. The driver contracts with the council to park and with the company to pay. According to the report, this division may mean that the app fee needn’t appear on the council’s tariff board. One parking space, two contracts; and where the app is the only means of payment, the supposed separation of these transactions is something the motorist is welcome to contemplate while paying both bills.
RingGo says it is for the councils to decide whether to display the charge on their signs. The Local Government Association says it is for the providers to make the fees clear. The Department for Transport says tariffs and surcharges are for the councils. “Drivers should be able to see clearly what they will be charged before they pay for parking,” the department solemnly advises.
When the fee is being agreed, however, the council and the company have no difficulty finding one another. A few councils pay the providers directly; many pass some or all of the cost to motorists. The amount varies from place to place according to the arrangement the two parties have made.
RingGo explains that its fee funds the service it provides. Certainly, a payment service costs money. So did the machines, whose installation and maintenance costs the councils are saving. Let us hear, then, rather less about the wonders of “convenience” and rather more about why the person paying the advertised parking tariff must also pay the council’s chosen collector.
The car park, meanwhile, can remain council property throughout. Capital doesn’t even have to buy it. A contract giving a company the payment business provides access to the users’ pockets; a council that removes the other means of payment undertakes to supply the customers. What a useful partner a public authority can be!
The AA demands that £1 on the sign should mean £1 paid. Certainly. Print the full charge, put it where everyone can see it, dispense with the hunt for information symbols. Socialists needn’t surrender a single such demand to the motoring organisations. But a private toll plainly printed remains a private toll.
A workers’ administration would bring the payment system under public control and account for its labour and equipment in the cost of running the service. If an app saves time and money, use it; let the saving go towards lower charges, better provision or other transport needs, according to the public plan.
