Park life What will I gain? The advantage gained from disregarding parking rules or regulations is a strong influencer of non-compliant behaviour. Convenience of location, saving the parking payment, or the perceived superior importance or urgency of whatever they are doing can deliver enough advantage for someone to decide its worth breaking the rules. See Bournemouth in the summer; parking within walking distance of the beach and enabling a lovely day out in the sun is going to be considered a significant advantage. So, when the advantage factor is there, the next consideration is usually what is the risk of me being caught? Studies have found that violations of parking regulations occur most frequently with shortdwell visits, as people like the odds of being done and out of there before a parking officer spots them. On-foot enforcement, by its very nature, is a moving feast, and people can become familiar with how often and where officers patrol, thereby enabling them to assess when and where they might chance their arm. Remove the risk of any consequences and it doesnt take very long for compliance to go into freefall decline do we need to talk about Aberystwyth again? Where camera enforcement is introduced, data shows that behaviour fairly rapidly changes, as the chance of getting caught is now 100 per cent. Research conducted across major private land operators shows that compliance in ANPR-managed car parks is in the region of 99.6-99.7 per cent. Where local authorities can use cameras on street, especially around schools, similar statistics have been gathered, and the positive effect is seen quite quickly and is sustained over time. Even if the risk assessment indicates a high chance of getting caught, there is still the consideration of what are the consequences? Now, arguably, the most important part of the equation; if the consequences are seen as negligible, or worth the advantage gained, there is virtually no leverage to encourage compliance. What constitutes a sufficient Where camera enforcement is introduced, data shows that behaviour fairly rapidly changes, as the chance of getting caught is now 100 per cent deterrent to dissuade non-compliance is an especially high-profile topic at present and rightly so. There is plenty of evidence, from within and outside of our sector, that insufficient consequence drives non-compliant behaviour. Academic studies equate lower parking fines with increased dwell time of violators in other words, they have no incentive to move on once they have incurred the consequences. They conversely found that a higher level of fine reduced the number of violator arrivals in the first place. Consequences also hinge on whether people perceive that any penalty or charges can or will be pursued and legally enforced. If the recovery system has loopholes or limitations, eventually enough people will re-evaluate their risk/consequence equation, causing compliance levels to wane. The various models tested in one study concluded that optimal enforcement and, therefore, greatest compliance would be achieved through high probability of there being consequences, or getting caught, coupled with higher levels of penalty. Where lower fines and less enforcement were tested, the model confirmed that this increased the number of illegal parking acts and the dwell time. Not exactly a Eureka moment for seasoned parking professionals, perhaps, but it brings into focus a need to follow the science and maybe pay a little less heed to politics in order to achieve and maintain an equilibrium in parking enforcement. It does make you wonder what scientific models have been used when setting levels of fines and charges up to now if they have the aim of achieving optimal effectiveness and to what extent other social factors may have had greater influence. The private sector has produced evidence of the impact on compliance of different levels of parking charge, which confirms that the higher the charge the greater the level of compliance achieved. The stated aim, in statutory guidance, is for civil parking enforcement to achieve 100 per cent compliance (with the regulations). Unless something changes in the local authority enforcement equilibrium, it is hard to see how the trend wont drift further away from that aim, despite the best efforts of authorities. Its important for us to promote that there is science to compliance in parking and traffic management, and that the evidence points to the current private parking sector regime being closer to getting the science right. If we are going to consider the merits of levelling up, the ideal model needs to be based on what can be proven to work most effectively in achieving the key objective of compliance. This points towards the need to increase public sector charges, not to lower them in the private sector, to ensure effective means to recover charges in both sectors, and to enable universal adoption of camera technology for enforcement anything else would be frankly unscientific. Kelvin Reynolds is away Alison Tooze Chief engagement and policy officer at the BPA alison.t@britishparking. co.uk 48 PN May 2023 pp46-48 Park Life.indd 48 25/04/2023 11:37