New pay system to be trialled at Sand Street car park

24 July 2012

An automated number plate recognition system (ANPR) that charges for parking on leaving the car park will be trialled in October. The trial will run for 1 year before being reviewed to see if it would be suitable to use in other multi-storey car parks.

Despite the fact that paycards have been supported by the public in past surveys, in response to a growing number of requests from the public and town centre traders, TTS has been investigating different car park payment systems that would allow shoppers to pay for their parking on exit, taking away the need to predict how long you want to park for. This ANPR system will fit into our car parks without the need for structural alteration and the technology has been used successfully elsewhere.

The system works by scanning and reading the car’s number plate on the way in and registering it on a computer system together with the time of arrival. When the driver returns to the car park to collect their car, they will look up their registration at a terminal at the car park entrance and pay for their parking before exiting the car park. It will be a cashless system; payment will be by debit or credit card or a pre-purchased decremental or rechargeable card.

The Minister for Transport and Technical Services, Deputy Kevin Lewis said “There are numerous different systems used for parking payment all over the UK and Europe and new technology is enabling new methods all the time. We have to find a system that works best for Jersey. Paycards have worked well for us for over 20 years and are in operation in other places such as the Westminster district in London. However, people are asking for a more flexible system. Having done some research this ANPR system looks like it could be the best for Jersey. As it is so different we need to trial it and see what the implications and effects on parking habits are and review the results before we decide whether to adopt a new system in all our car parks.”