Parking

Victoria.

Did anyone notice any difference with the parking situation this morning?

What time did you find parking up until? Especially interested to see if there's any difference in O'Reilly, back of Engineering and running track parking since that's where most of the park and ride people were.

I won't be driving in for a few days but just wondering if the situation has changed at all.

sparkthatbled

I just started but I'm aware of how bad it used to be. I got in at 9:30 (for an 11am lecture) worried about finding a spot. The engineering adjacent one was full but the running track was a little more than half full. How does that compare to last year?

Victoria.

Seems to be a bit of an improvement! I've been doing it for a few years now.

In the past the O'Reilly one would be full by about 07.50, the back of engineering usually somewhere between 08.30 and 08.45 and the running track one only opened last year and you'd get parking there a bit later. O'Reilly was an absolute mess. I'd say about half of it was people dumping their cars and going for the bus.

seagull50

I arrive at about 8:30am every morning and the engineering carpark always has a few spots free. I usually go into the running track because it has never been full when I am arriving or leaving.

SlyBacon93

What's the benefit of the permit parking lads?
I just signed up for one and it doesn't really guarantee a spot. I don't really see the point to be honest.

delta_bravo

SlyBacon93 wrote: »

What's the benefit of the permit parking lads?
I just signed up for one and it doesn't really guarantee a spot. I don't really see the point to be honest.

It allows you to park in the "free" car parks in ucd. If you didnt have it you would risk a clamp or have to use the paid carparks

RayM

SlyBacon93 wrote: »

What's the benefit of the permit parking lads?
I just signed up for one and it doesn't really guarantee a spot. I don't really see the point to be honest.

It stops people from using UCD as a 'park & ride' facility. Although I'm not sure how much of a problem that was in the first place.

QCS123

I was dubious that this would help at all however last year whenever I used the one behind O'Reilly hall I found that it was completely full by 8.05am. The two mornings I drove in last week there was still a respectable number of spaces at 8.15am.
Also I usually found that the car park between centra and Belgrove was full by 9am but again there were about 20 spaces left at 9.10am.

It could have just been that I was lucky those days and less people were driving for whatever reason, but it does seem to be a small improvement on last year (still have to be in early to get a space though!)

SlyBacon93

I wonder how they can verify that someone has paid for the permit. I doubt they have something that can check on the spot whether you've paid for the permit or not.

What's there to stop chancers from parking anyway ?

Dr Strange

SlyBacon93 wrote: »

I wonder how they can verify that someone has paid for the permit. I doubt they have something that can check on the spot whether you've paid for the permit or not.

What's there to stop chancers from parking anyway ?

Oh but they do have a system in place for that. I saw it in action when the new sports car park for gym members was opened. They don't issue you with an actual permit for the windscreen, you have to register your car (and only one car per person) with them when obtaining an electronic permit (online).

They then use an automatic number plate recognition system (the two little cameras behind the two squares on the side of their vans/cars). It immediately indicates if an unregistered car (off their list) is parked there and bang, clamp goes on.

They had a field day when it started in the sports car park and did multiple rounds during the day. Some people thought that they could just get a ticket from the machine (which is also placed near the sports members car park but only valid for the yellow-marked VIP spaces outside the actual car park area. People who bought a ticket but still parked their car inside the gym members car park were all clamped, no exception. I had a good vantage point to observe this from the library in HSC.

b0gg3r

Dr Strange wrote: »

They then use an automatic number plate recognition system (the two little cameras behind the two squares on the side of their vans/cars). It immediately indicates if an unregistered car (off their list) is parked there and bang, clamp goes on.

They've cameras on the side of the campus services jeeps?

Do you mean to say these guys are actually doing something when they go spinning around campus?

Dr Strange

b0gg3r wrote: »

They've cameras on the side of the campus services jeeps?

Do you mean to say these guys are actually doing something when they go spinning around campus?

No, not campus services, it's the clamping company that has the cameras - NCPS.