People who deal with parking within local authorities are being urged not to miss out on an important online meeting tomorrow (Friday 8 September) about the new National Parking Platform, as figures show more than 130 authorities have already signed up.
The Transport Technology Forum’s Parking Working Group is holding the webinar from 9.30-11.00 to explain the NPP, which is a Department for Transport-led initiative to simplify parking payment.
The session will focus on the National Parking Platform and accelerating its delivery and uptake. The session title is “Why have you not joined the NPP?” and will focus on the benefits the platform will provide for local authorities, service providers and the parking sector more widely. The pilot platform, being operated by Manchester City Council, has four primary functions. These are to provide simplified and improved customer service, a data exchange to enable multi-seller payments, a way of sharing parking information and standardising technical and commercial relations.
The Department for Transport hopes that many local authorities will attend to get more information, but there will also be an opportunity to raise any issues and barriers to entry. Organisers say “130 Local Authorities can’t be wrong – don’t miss out on understanding the potential of this major new parking solution.”
The meeting will explain to Local Authorities how they can benefit from the NPP through lower procurement costs, more data and more flexible parking management. It will discuss how the platform should also prove popular with motorists who will no longer have to use a specific parking payment provider based on the location of the parking, and how better parking information will also reduce the amount of traffic circulating looking for a space, with a subsequent benefit to congestion and air quality.
Liverpool City Council’s Head of Parking Ken Prior will focus on the benefits from a local authority perspective, while the DfT’s Head of Future Roads Technology Michael Dnes, Keith Williams, the Director of Parking Matters, and the Working Group’s Chair Sarah Randall will take part in a Q and A session for Local Authorities to talk about what they understand the NPP to be, the benefits of being part of it and any perceived barriers to joining. The online meeting will take 90 minutes.
All Local Authorities are welcome to attend.
To sign up, click here while the agenda is here.
(Picture – National Parking Platform)
