Local Authority, Higher Education & Private Car Park Operators

Local authority, higher education and private car park operators should encourage and help ensure that motorists are given every opportunity to be able to input their vehicle registration correctly. 

This can be achieved in the following ways:

• Car park signage should be clear, conspicuous and sufficient in number to inform the motorist about the terms and conditions that relate to a motorist’s obligations in order to park legally.

• All parking operators should never employ predatory tactics to entice or lure a motorist into incurring a parking ticket. This includes technology that is not user-friendly.

• Parking personnel need to be properly trained and act professionally at all times.

• Parking personnel should be encouraged to use discretion when adjudicating minor typographical errors before issuing a parking ticket.

• Local authority,  higher education and private car park facilities that utilise technology like Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) should always ensure that systems are always in good working order, comply with reasonable standards of operation and are fit for purpose.

• Parking operators must carry out appropriate checks of all technology used and should have protocols to identify the member of staff who carried out the check. In this way genuine mistakes and typographical errors made by the motorist can be validly identified and not mistaken for a technological error. 

• Parking operators are strongly advised to have a contact phone number on signage adjacent to parking kiosks to cover situations where a motorist has incorrectly entered their registration and need to resolve the issue without incurring a parking ticket. 

Obligations for local authority and private car park operators

• Local authority, higher education and private car park operators should use the “Get Your Reg Right” logo at all their car parks where aforementioned technology is being used, especially on signage adjacent to parking kiosks and validation machines. 

• Local authority and private car park operators who wish to get involved should contact the International Parking Community (IPC) to confirm their commitment to the “Get Your Reg Right” campaign so that the IPC can publish a list of organisations supporting the scheme.