The number of parking tickets being issued in Invercargill has taken a plunge as the flash new meters make an impact.
Invercargill City Council parking wardens have issued 38% fewer parking tickets under its new parking meter system.
That meant a drop in revenue for the city, although it was still early days.
Figures released by the Invercargill City Council show there were 1753 infringement notices issued through the new parking meter system from December 2021, when the new parking metres were installed, to April this year.
This is a 38% reduction compared with the 2821 notices issued by council between December 2020 to April 2021.
Whether was due to the lack of payment options or due to new 30 minutes of free parking policy, parking revenue totalled $123,048.43 for the four months to April — about $14,000 down on the previous year.
ICC infrastructure group manager Erin Moogan said council has spent $800,000 to retire its 750 "lollipop" coin-operated parking meters and to install 85 kiosks across the city centre.
The upgrade was planned since 2019 but constraints related to the Covid-19 have delayed the process.
While the move was welcomed by many within the community, some have struggled to adapt to the new technology.
"We received initial feedback that at some of the kiosk locations the screens can be difficult to read in bright sunlight at certain times of day.
"However, being able to use credit cards without surcharge has been welcomed by a significant proportion of our parking customers, based on the payment mix."
Roading manager Russell Pearson said this used to be one of the biggest feedback issues council heard from residents about their parking system, saying people "no longer have coins".
Figures revealed people still used cash to pay their parking.
For March 2022, 7553 transactions were paid by credit card, 7164 were paid by cash.
"We are pleased that there have been 11,849 instances where 15 minutes or 30 minutes of parking at no charge were used by our parking customers."
Ms Moogan said the inner city accounts for the most infringements issued.
-- LUISA GIRAO
