Charles on… anything that comes along

The railway station where I get the train to London has a car park that is now run by National Car Parks (hereafter NCP). Until January 10, you can buy your car parking ticket along with your rail ticket, and then park the car. Simple enough. One transaction, two tickets, one location.

But after that date, you’ll only be able to buy your car parking tickets from NCP’s machine, or via text or phone call.

At first the idea of buying the car park ticket - actually a virtual one - through a text or phone call is attractive. Great - I can park the car if I’m in a hurry, and get straight on the train, text from there, sorted.

Except when you look at the fine print. (Which is the link of “How it works” from the “Fastpark by phone” page, just in case that’s a one-off URL.)

How much does it cost?

We will calculate the best possible price for the duration that you have requested. The parking fee plus a Service Charge will be charged to your credit or debit card. The Service Charges are as follows:

20p where the parking charge is less than £2

30p where the parking fee is £2 or more

10p to extend a parking session

Optional text reminders or text receipts are charged at 10p per text.

Network charges may vary and are not included in the service charge.

Come on - it all adds up to more money for them. A 10% rise on the sub-£2 transactions, and 15% on those only just over. Plus you have to guess how many hours you’re going to be there; the previous system just let you buy until midnight, by which time you were very likely to be back, and also there were unlikely to be wardens checking for infringements.

I know - might be credit card charges? Except that why would they go up like that?

And more to the point: what was wrong with the ticketing office selling car park tickets? They did it perfectly well. They did it very well. It worked. There was no need to change it - except that NCP is a bastard greedy company.

And so I ask the question again: what was wrong with the original system? Oh, well, I guess it’s time to go to the local paper. Like I did when this was being suggested back in June or so.

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