Enhancing enforcement
Even if the reasons for parking management and payment services are well understood by citizens and visitors, there often is resistance against enforcement. Parking fees are often perceived as a rip-off strategy and enforcers as its symbol. So often cities make rules but are then very weak on enforcement, for fear of confrontation. However, without effective enforcement the whole paid parking system has very limited impacts. In many countries enforcement is still a task performed by the local police and is very seldom their highest priority (they often lack staff to do their core activities).
Enhancing enforcement aims to make it more effective – for example through the following measures:
- De-criminalization of enforcement (and thus making enforcement no longer a task exclusively for the police);
- moving parking enforcers around in a larger region so that they don’t get to know local people who persuade them not to enforce the rules;
- Training parking enforcers to give advice to people on where to park legally and how the rules work, so that they are more “ambassadors” and not just enforcers:
- Using smart tools to monitor parking (e.g. scan cars and mobile phone payment) to make enforcement more efficient.