Articles

In 2019, we have seen local councils across the UK widely using digital parking technology to help ease congestion and manage traffic more efficiently in towns, cities and rural areas. Our experience indicates that technologies such as MiPermit have become an essential tool when councils are considering how they will manage traffic over the next few decades.

Derby City Council has come up with a novel idea to encourage visitors to the city during the festive season by offering a parking advent calendar based on the MiPermit platform. The council is already using MiPermit to provide digital parking permits to residents and visitors across the city. The council came up with the idea of a parking advent calendar to offer Christmas shoppers daily parking deals during December.

The run up to Christmas is truly accelerating and Christmas markets are open for business across the UK. One of the longest running is in Bath, which expects more than half a million visitors each year.

The Traffic and Parking Conference took place earlier this week in Manchester. The one day forum brings together professionals from both the public and private sectors to discuss operational issues affecting many aspects of parking and traffic management; an area that is fast becoming a top priority for local authorities as they invest in smart city initiatives.

Earlier this year, Cardiff Council identified a need to improve the security of parking machines across the city, following a spate of thefts and vandalism. The Council also highlighted the opportunity to modernise how people paid for parking to reflect the trend towards a cashless society; it is a well-known fact that debit card payments have overtaken cash as the preferred form of payment. In addition, people are increasingly choosing to pay using their mobile phones.