The UK’s car parking system is being reshaped by both providers and the parking service apps such as RingGo who carry the vital data.  

As the UK’s population has grown, so has the number of vehicles on the country’s roads. This has led to increased traffic volumes, congestion and an increased demand for parking.

There are over 4,700 parking facilities in the UK, with 48% run by local authorities. Companies such as RingGo, a cashless parking solution, work closely with local government to ensure parking is not only available in the areas that need it most, but to also look at the future of parking locations and how they can be used to benefit EV drivers.  

We spoke to Peter O’Driscoll, managing director, RingGo, to learn more about how parking systems can assist environmental goals.

Peter O’Driscoll

Just Auto (JA): Could you provide some background on the company?

Peter O’Driscoll (PO): I’ve been with the organisation for just over 15 years. The organisation used to rely on what was called IVR telephone technology to book a parking session. When the App Store came along from Apple, and then subsequently Google Android came out, that really changed our business model.

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There have been three big growth moments for us. The first thing was the introduction of app stores. The second was the new pound coins as a lot of the payment machines out there couldn’t take the new pound coin, so people were drawn to us. Then there was the pandemic, which obviously led to people not handling cash and turning to other options in large numbers.

To support environmental goals, how will parking evolve?

We launched the first carbon meter emission-based parking scheme back in 2010. That’s in the London Borough of Richmond, where there were three vehicle bandings based on your emissions in your vehicle. That was under the Liberal leadership, and then the Conservative Party decided to get rid of it.

It wasn’t until 2017 when the city of Westminster introduced a diesel surcharge. The impact of that scheme was considerable – they calculated hundreds of thousands fewer vehicle movements with diesel vehicles as a consequence of the diesel surcharge in the borough. Whether they got displaced into the neighbouring areas, I don’t know, but the statistics speak for themselves.

Then we saw the introduction of fuel surcharging and EV discounting across London that got deployed in about six or seven boroughs. We’ve also seen that overlaid with CO2 policies, trying to get cleaner vehicles in.

We’re now seeing this evolve to the next stage, where there’s an issue with larger SUVs driving around London. They take up a lot of road space, both in terms of parking, but also impacting the flow of traffic. We’re now seeing the implementation of vehicle weight-based charging schemes. In theory, it does help manage heavier vehicles, but in the same breath, EV vehicles are much heavier than ICE vehicles because of the batteries. There’s quite a lot of fine tuning happening around how these schemes look and feel.

If you look at somewhere like France, Paris has an SUV tax. If you drive a larger vehicle, you pay a surcharge based on your vehicle.

What we’re increasingly seeing in European cities is that they are moving cars from the on-street environment, and there are more underground car parks. Fifteen years ago, you might have seen a town square with loads of cars parked around, but now it is increasingly likely that the cars are parked under the square.

So you see a difference between the UK and Europe?

The parking markets have evolved differently. The Nordic markets evolved and the Dutch markets evolved this open market concept – all parking services made available. 

In the UK the original entrants into the marketplace were private individuals. They were about focusing on growing the inventory of spaces, stacking it high and selling it. Long term, that leads to a vicious cycle of cut-throat tender pricing, you never get renewed for more money, which means it prevents competition.

You end up in a scenario where you can probably name two, maybe three, parking service providers in the UK. If you go to Holland, they have 15 providers and the population there is around 18 million; the UK population is over 70 million.

How important is collaboration to improve the parking system and reduce congestion?

We have a lot of interaction with local government authorities. We are aware when there’s a Climate Action Plan, and we’ll sit down with the local authority, and we’ll review our parking data. We capture the vehicle type and emissions with every vehicle that we log on the database. For example, we can say: “You may want to get rid of all dirty diesel vehicles, but when we look at the data, only 8% of people parking here actually have diesel vehicles.”

We tell them: “Don’t design a policy that’s going to just have limited impact. What is your objective? Is it you want more vehicles out, or is it you want cleaner vehicles in to displace less clean ones? What are your obligations to high street and local business?” There is a lot to consider.

If they are looking at putting EV chargers in a car park, we will help them with data and say, for example: “Yes, you’ve only got two EV drivers parking every day.” However, there is the possibility that if you put more EV chargers in, they will come and charge.  

We can look at the whole picture, look at overall parking capacity utilisation in an area, and then help them design a policy to meet their needs – for environmental needs and the needs of the local community and businesses.

How has the increased number of EVs on UK roads impacted the parking system?

I think we’ve seen the biggest changes around parking in the off-street environment. On-street is anything from the curb, but not a road, and off-street is everything that’s not on a road but in a car park.

Then in the car park itself, we’re seeing investments from companies like APCOA, who are investing in becoming city hubs. We’re seeing some of the big operators thinking about changes in work patterns. Less people are parking right now than they were pre-pandemic, so it’s a case of how do you recreate that space in the changed conditions?

For example, a multi-storey car park might only be half-full in terms of capacity utilisation, so I think you’ll see some car parks that may become EV hubs.

How will the so-called ‘open market’ change the way parking services are delivered?

The National Parking Platform is a Department for Transport initiative which provides a back-end hub that all the phone parking providers in the UK can plug into. Currently, when you arrive in an area, you can typically only use one app.

In this new open market model, which the National Parking Platform is facilitating, you are able to use any provider in a parking space. For B2B and fleet customers, they’re particularly keen to have a single provider – which this platform will facilitate – where you can choose a pay-by-phone parking service you want to work with and who are operating across the UK.